


Starfire

by Siavahda



Series: Duranki [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Culture, All The Stories Are Real, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, Gay Male Character, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Magic, Mermaids, Multi, Multiple Worlds, Near Future, Neo-Paganism, Original Mythology, Portals, Prophecy, Queered Culture, Shapeshifters - Freeform, Soul Bond, The Chosen Ones Are Not Your Friends, Transgender themes, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:23:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 123,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5438303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the police rule his lover's death a suicide, Xavier doesn't know how to go on. But it's not up to him. Because Al was keeping secrets, and when friends Xavier never knew about come knocking, things go from tragic to apocalyptic. </p><p>There is a war that's been fought from the beginning of time, between gods and monsters, myths and legends. The battlefields are worlds, dimensions, the darkness between stars, space and time. Humans have never fought in this conflict, too weak to be of interest to either side. </p><p>That's about to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Turning the Key

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the only one of my original works that is complete right now. I had the idea for this story when I was 14; suffice to say, it's gone through countless re-imaginings since then! I've edited it and rewritten it so many times I'm honestly a bit sick of it, but some dear friends expressed interest, so here it is.
> 
> I'll post a few chapters now, and if people like it I'll post more until it's all up here.
> 
>  
> 
> **Trigger warning for graphic suicide in this chapter.**

_“Dying is like coming to the end of a long novel—you only regret it if the ride was enjoyable and left you wanting more.”—Jerome P. Crabb_

 

Aleron looked into the mirror and stared at the man he meant to murder tonight.

The face that gazed back at him was lovely, delicately androgynous features framed by feathery black hair that was just as soft as it looked. The eyes were blue jewels set in creamy skin, dark and liquid and appealing. It was a face that inspired the protectiveness of older women and the covetousness of modelling agencies, a face that earned him a thousand propositions, whispered and sinful, under the flashing strobe lights of the clubs.

He loathed it.

Tears of disgust blurred his reflection in the glass. Goddess, but he’d never imagined there was more than preference to the fact that shapeshifters rarely changed their own genders. He’d never thought that a body could be a prison, a cage of bone and veins, or fathomed the pain of catching a glimpse of a reflection that screamed _wrong_. He’d never guessed the nausea of looking down and seeing the wrong genitals, the stomach-clenching shame of having people stare when you accidentally reached for the wrong clothes in a store, the wrong restroom door, forgot how to speak or how to walk. This body had been designed to his exacting specifications, but he’d never truly understood what it would be like to live inside it.

He understood it now.

Taking a deep breath, he looked down at the blade held between his palm and the sink. And although he would tell Vladishka and Eteire, when they asked, that he did this in one last attempt to waken Nakir from his own prison, that was only the smallest part of it.It was the phone call four days ago that had shoved him to the lip of this abyss, a sickening storm of _no, no, I can’t, not again, not again!_

Four days. Four days to remember the burning agony of having to endure the human’s touch, the struggle of twisting his mouth into smiles like nooses, each one choking him, slowly killing him—

No. The thought brought with it a surge of white-edged panic that had him clutching the edge of the sink, fighting to breathe. Not even for Nakir’s sake could he stand it again: Xavier’s hands on his skin, his lips smothering Aleron’s every breath, the weight of him crushing Aleron into the mattress until he felt as though his bones would shatter under the pressure—no. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t touch anyone but Nakir that way, couldn’t give himself to anyone but his _nejika_ ever again.

_Never again!_

The cool metal of the knife helped calm him; he stroked his thumb over the razor edge of it, letting its honed sharpness soothe him. Everything was ready. The courts would be surprised by his sudden return but they would rejoice, not condemn. Even Enandir, who had pushed for the safety of an anonymous incarnation on Earth, would be more relieved than disapproving. They needed Aleron. He was doing no good here.

His hand shook against the sink.

There was no reason to be afraid. He knew that, knew it like he knew the colour of the sky and the pull of gravity. The knife in his hand wasn’t a weapon, it was a key—a key out of his cage. And yet… He had never done this before. Every mage in the known worlds swore that killing a host body was no riskier than changing clothes, and Aleron could feel the steel-cord bond tying him to his own, real body. All he had to do was follow that road home, drawn like iron filings to a magnet. It would take no conscious effort; he would slip from one skin to the other like a stormwolf through sky.

It was perfectly safe. He didn’t need to be afraid. It was going to be okay.

His hand stilled against the sink.

And he raised his chin and the blade in his hand and slashed the knife across the carotid artery at the side of his neck.

 _210 seconds._ Blood exploded from the severed vessel, and Aleron gasped, forcing down the instinctive surge of panic as the knife fell from his suddenly slippery fingers. Three and a half minutes until this body died. _Just 3 1/2. _It shook, this body, and he grabbed for the sink as he fell to his knees, but his bloody fingers slid right off the smooth porcelain.

_210 seconds._

Rather than count down as blood waterfalled from the wound, turning everything red, red, _red_ , Al curled up on his side on the tiled floor, ignoring each sickening pump of blood pulsating from his throat. He pictured home—the golden pyramids of Tivona, Zaruth’s bee-like hives, the cool winds of Kymel under his wings.

Her wings. As the darkness closed in on her, Siavahda smiled. She was finally going home.

 


	2. Genesis

_“I believe in looking reality straight in the eye—and denying it.”—Garrison Keillor_

“Did your boyfriend have any enemies?”

“No.”

“No one who’d want to hurt him? No one he owed money to?”

“No.”

“Did he ever take illegal drugs?”

“No.”

“But you haven’t seen him in six months, is that correct?”

“Yes. I’ve been on tour in Honduras. I just got in a few hours ago.”

“So it’s possible that he developed some bad habits while you were away? Maybe found some unsavoury friends?”

“No.”

“Mister Malach…”

 _“No._ Al—Al’s the guy who never breaks the speed limit, he doesn’t even pirate music—when the hell would he have met ‘unsavoury friends’?”

“Maybe at a club—?”

“He hated going out—Jesus, this is _bullshit_ , I’m not listening to this crap—”

“Mister Malach! We’re not done here!”

*

“And the door was locked when you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“But there were no signs of a struggle in the apartment?”

“No.”

“You didn’t touch anything?”

“No. We’ve been over this already!”

“Let’s just go over it again, Mister Malach, please. You arrived home. What time was that?”

“Just after oh-eight-hundred. When I got inside, the clock in the hallway said eight-twelve.”

“You remember that.”

“Yes. It’s a digital clock, the numbers were bright red.”

“All right. And the door was locked.”

“Yes, I had to use my key.”

“Then what?”

“I went inside. It was quiet. Al usually has music playing when he’s home, but there was nothing. I dropped my bag in the hallway and went looking for him.”

“Because you thought he would be at home.”

“Yes.”

“Even though he hadn’t been answering his phone?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you think he would be at home instead of out?”

“I told you before, Al didn’t go out much. Never overnight. And he knew—he should have known I was coming back that day. I told him he didn’t have to come to the airport because I was getting in so early, but he would have been waiting at home for me.”

“So you went inside. Which room did you check first?”

“The kitchen is closest to the door, so I glanced in there first. Everything was spotless. The sitting room was the same. Then our bedroom.”

“Had the bed been made?”

“No.”

“So it had been slept in.”

“Yes.”

“By only one person?”

“…Excuse me?”

“Did it look as though Aleron had been sleeping alone?”

“…You think he was having an affair?”

“It’s a necessary—”

“How the fuck would I know how many people had been in the bed? There weren’t condom wrappers all over the floor, if that’s what you’re asking!”

“Mister Malach—”

“But what do I know, right? We’d only been together for five years, that’s nothing. Maybe you should check the sheets for come stains, or the sex toys—have your guys found them yet? _There’s_ a sure-fire why to check just how much fun my _murdered boyfriend_ was having without me!”

“Mister Malach!”

“What? You think he was fucking someone else while I was fighting for my country? Really? That’s the kind of person you think he was?”

“We have to ask these kind of—”

“The bathroom door was ajar at the end of the hallway. I pushed it open. He was on the floor. I didn’t touch him. I called 999. That’s it. That’s what I’ve told you ten times already and if you make me say it another ten fucking times it isn’t going to change!”

“Why didn’t you touch him?”

“Because he was already dead. There was nothing I could do and I didn’t want to destroy any evidence.”

“How did you know he was dead?”

“Because his blood was all over the fucking room instead of in his body! Because I’ve seen friends die and I know what it looks like, I know what it _smells_ like, and Al was definitely—definitely—”

“…Do you need a moment?”

“…No. This. I just want to get this over with… There was a knife on the floor. I told the officers who arrived on-scene about it. Haven’t you processed it yet? Found fingerprints?”

“We’re working on it, Mister Malach. Now, you said the door was locked when you arrived. Were there any signs of forced entry?”

“No.”

*

“Did your boyfriend have any mental health issues, Mister Malach?”

“What?”

“Did he—”

“Why are you asking—no, he didn’t, he was fine.”

“He wasn’t bipolar? Never showed any signs of depression?”

“Why the fuck are you asking me this?”

“Please just answer the question, sir.”

“No, he wasn’t depressed. Never.”

“Even though his boyfriend spent most of his time away on military service? With the SAS, no less? He must have been extremely worried about you.”

“He didn’t like it, but we talked about it. He knew why I had to. And we—we agreed my next tour out would be my last… Why are you asking these questions? You should be looking for his murderer, not asking—”

“Mister Malach… I’m sorry to have to tell you this. But the coroner is ruling your boyfriend’s death a suicide.”

“He… What?”

“All the evidence points to it, Mister Malach. I’m very sorry.”

“…You think he killed himself?”

“I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The evidence—”

“That doesn’t… It doesn’t make any…”

“Mister Malach? Are you all right?”

“He didn’t… He wouldn’t have… He knew I was coming home that day. He knew I was… He wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t…”

“This is a grief counselling service. You should give them a call.”

“I…”

“I’m truly sorry for your loss… Do you need me to call someone?”

*

Four days since he’d found his lover’s corpse on the floor, and Xavier hadn’t cried yet.

There had to be something wrong with him. Who didn’t cry when their lover died? When the person they loved best of all just—ceased to exist?

Who didn’t cry?

It was raining when he left the police station, as if the sky was trying to teach him by example— _look, like this, this is how you do it, how you weep, how you let the poison out of the heart-wound_. But Xavier was too much afire, too charred and ashen, to heed the lesson. It would have been a relief, but he was suffocating on smoke and couldn’t remember how to breathe, never mind how to bleed salt and pain into some kind of healing. That kind of magic was beyond him now.

A memory cut through him like a knife: _four years ago, a summer storm breaking free of the slate-grey clouds while he and Aleron were walking back from the bodega near their apartment. Al’s blue shirt instantly sodden, plastered to his skin like dark paint; the curve of Al’s mouth as he’d turned to Xavier and laughed, wordless and bright, alive. Al tugging the bag of groceries from Xavier’s arms and leaving it on a bench, taking his hand, pulling him into a spin, a twirl, dancing in the rain like idiots, like immortals. Thunder roaring overhead to the rhythm of Xavier’s heart, surprised, awkward, then exhilarated. The taste of rain on his lover’s smile, in his mouth._

He staggered, eyes on fire, the taste of ashes thick on his tongue. He wanted to scream and wanted to vanish, to collapse into himself until he was nothing, an empty space, swallowed by the void that had opened up beneath his skin.

He was hollow with pain.

And he hated himself for it. This pain was nothing, it was _deserved_. Aleron’s must have been—must have been so much worse, so great he couldn’t live with it a second longer, and _Xavier hadn’t noticed._ Had never even guessed.

If he could have gone to his knees and begged forgiveness, he would have. But there was no one left to give absolution.

Aleron was gone.

A small park appeared on his right; thoughtlessly, Xavier made for it, found a bench and collapsed onto it. There was no one else around; everyone had fled the rainfall. Xavier noticed enough to be grateful for the solitude, then forgot it, bending over his knees with his head in his hands. His necklace, a small pendant bracketed by his dog tags, swung out from his shirt with the motion, shining gold amidst all the grey.

The world was weeping for him. Or maybe not; maybe it was mourning the loss on its own behalf, not as a proxy for this freak who couldn’t even cry when his boyfriend killed himself.

“Hey.” A hand touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Xavier looked up. A young brunette stood in front of him, her pale face frowning a little with concern behind a pair of Second Sight glasses. Her bottle-green coat was fastened to her throat to keep off the rain; a matching umbrella rose above her head like an emerald flower.

“I’m fine.” Xavier’s voice emerged harshly from his throat, hoarse with words unspoken.

Instantly, but still too late, he remembered that Alwould have teased him for his answer. _“Fine just means Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional,”_ he would have said laughingly. And the dagger in Xavier’s chest twisted so painfully that he took a sudden breath.

“You don’t look fine.” The woman looked uncomfortable, as if she herself didn’t understand why she was talking to a strange Arabic man in an empty park. “Can I call someone for you? Do you need help?”

Someone had abandoned a book beneath the bench; _The Golden Goose: fairy stories for children._ It was getting soaked.

 _Dammit, Al, **why?** _ Agony ripped through him like a spasm, and Xavier felt the sting of tears in his eyes at last, turning the book’s lurid cover into a smudge of neon. The brightest soul he’d ever known, snuffed out like a cigarette crushed underfoot. _What was so fucking bad that you had to take yourself out of the world to get away from it?_

“Thanks,” he managed aloud. He straightened up slowly, not wanting to startle her. Arab guy and a nice white lady—that was a recipe for trouble he really didn’t need. “But I’ll… I’ll be fine. You should go.”

Al couldn’t have chosen his timing rationally, could he? He wouldn’t have deliberately killed himself just when Xavier was sure to find him. Would he? The cold cruelty of it hovered on the edges of his mind, but Xavier, who always thought the worst of people because it was almost always the truth, didn’t want to believe that Al could want to hurt him like that.

Like this.

The woman was still standing there, he realised, forcing himself out of the downwards spiral _would he could he why why why_ _I’m sorry_ _._ She was staring at his necklace, the little gold dragon charm and his dog-tags.

“Where did you get that?” she asked. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost; something descended from panic and disbelief swept over her pixie-girl face. “That’s Nakir’s pendant. _Where did you get it?”_

“Excuse me?” Confusion pricked him through the sheen of grief; it morphed into anger before he knew what hit him, sparks catching on oiled rags and the whole sodden mess going up in flames. How many times growing up had he been accused, suspected, stopped by police and airport security—and now here was another white woman calling him a thief, _today_ , today of all days—“I don’t know any damn ‘Nakir’,” he snarled. “This necklace is _mine.”_

Her eyes narrowed, not the slightest bit intimidated. “Siav—Aleron was the last one to have it. You could only have gotten it from him. Did you?”

If she had pulled out a gun and shot him between the eyes, he would have been less shocked—and it might have hurt less than the casual, familiar way she said that name. “You—you knew him?”

“Knew him?” She snorted. “I know him better than you can imagine. Now,” she gestured at his neck, at the necklace, “tell me where you got that.”

He had never met her before. Xavier was sure of it. And he’d known all of Al’s friends—hadn’t he?

“No.” He was soaked. The rain slid off his leather jacket but it snaked down the back of his neck, and his hair was drenched. His jeans might as well have been tissue paper for all they kept his legs dry. “You can tell me who the hell you are, and _then_ I’ll consider telling you deeply personal information. Not before.”

 )0(

Eteire eyed the young man with grudging approval. That was smart of him, but immensely frustrating.

“I’m Jessica,” she lied, using the name on her birth certificate but not the one she’d truly been born with. She double-blinked to start her glasses recording what they saw. “A friend of Siav—Aleron’s.” She was so unused to Siavahda’s human name that her tongue kept stumbling over it; she hoped he hadn’t noticed, or that if he did he wouldn’t wonder about it. “There. Done. Your turn.”

“You keep mentioning this Siav person.” His voice was deceptively mild, but she could hear the steel in it. “I don’t think you know Aleron at all.”

Her eyes grew hot, but not with tears. She fought to dampen her temper. “I do,” she forced out calmly. “I—”

“No,” the man said with ruthless, but utterly brutal calm, “You don’t. If you did, you would know that he killed himself four days ago. I gave the police his contact book so that they could talk to his friends, and I know for a fact that you’re not in it. So quit with the bullshit and tell me what you want.”

 _I’m not in the damn book because she never needed to write my name down to remember it!_ With difficulty, Eteire kept from yelling it at him. Dead. He was telling her that Siav was dead. Could it be true? She frowned in confusion, forgetting his eyes on her. Why would Siav have gone home so unexpectedly? And without warning Eteire or Vladishka?

Why _now?_

 )0(

“The police probably just haven’t gotten around to me yet,” Jessica said, as if it was nothing. She didn’t seem upset at all: it chilled him. If she really did know Al—and how else could she have recognised the necklace?—then had she been expecting something like this? Xavier had thought Al’s suicide had come out of nowhere, but had there been signs? Signs Xavier had missed, or not been around to see? “I’ve told you who I am. Could you at least return the favour? Who are—were you to Aleron?”

The shift in tense, from _are_ to _were_ , present to past, forced him to look away. “His boyfriend,” he forced out, a low, challenging growl, daring her to comment or disapprove.

Shock passed over Jessica’s features, and Xavier allowed himself a bitter smile because despite everything, poking the prudish haters was still fun. But the girl didn’t make any of the usual protests or noises of disbelief, and Xavier wondered suddenly if her surprise wasn’t over Xavier’s gender but something else completely.

“When did your…relationship start? He never told me about this.”

)0(

 _No_ , she thought privately. _She didn’t, and she wouldn’t have. She kept her secrets._ Ever since Nakir had disappeared eight years ago, there had been no mention of partners at all. How could there be? Once you found—and lost—your _nejika_ , who else could compare?

It explained why Eteire had been drawn to him, though. The humming buzz in the back of her teeth, pulling her like a magnet. Had Siav spelled the pendant? Had she meant to draw Eteire to it? To this man?

Jessica watched the man’s face, trying to see whatever Siav had seen. She still didn’t know his name, she realised, but he wasn’t bad looking for a human. He was even quite handsome—Hispanic, possibly, or perhaps Middle Eastern with that golden olive skin—she still had trouble telling these humans apart. Dark hair shorn short in a buzz cut. Fine, sharp features that could have been drawn with a calligrapher’s brush, and dark chocolate eyes that probably made all the human women melt. But not a pretty-boy. She had seen enough war to know the difference between muscles built in a gym and those honed on the razor-sharp edge of danger, and the smooth, lean strength in Xavier’s arms was of the latter kind.

 _But where_ — _?_ At last she noticed the dog tags on the same chain as his gold-and-ruby dragon pendant. _Ah_. She idly wondered where he was on leave from, and which branch of the British Armed Forces he was in.

 )0(

“Three years ago, give or take.” The fact that he couldn’t remember exactly made Xavier feel vaguely guilty. As if he wasn’t breaking under the weight of blood-guilt already. “The necklace was an anniversary present, actually.” He didn’t know what made him say it, but the words practically tumbled from his lips. “I couldn’t get leave, so Al sent it out in a care package.”

He swallowed. “So I don’t appreciate you insinuating that I stole it. For the record.”

)0(

Eteire nodded absently, but she was thinking hard and barely listening. Her gaze remained fixed on the pendant, its gold stark and bright against the darkness of the man’s—Siavahda’s human lover’s—jacket.

Nakir’s pendant. It wasn’t just any old piece of jewellery; Eteire had never seen Nakir without it, and she’d assumed that it had been lost when Daeron had Nakir kidnapped and murdered. But it must have fallen or been torn free in the struggle; Siav must have kept it all this time. And given it to a human.

Why? She racked her brain for an explanation, but couldn’t think of one. It made no sense. Why would Siavahda give up what must surely have been one of her most treasured possessions? And to a _human?_ Knowing how Siav had felt about her human body, Eteire couldn’t imagine what had convinced her to enter into a relationship with a human who couldn’t possibly understand—well, _anything_.

But there had been some charm on the pendant to pull Eteire in. And Siav would have known, must have known, that Eteire would recognise it.

 _Could it be a message?_ Frustration whipped and snarled through her. _But a message meaning_ what _?_

Vladishka might know.

“I need to make a call,” she told him.

 )0(

Xavier bit back the urge to say _Good for you._ “So? Go ahead.”

He leaned against the back of the bench and closed his eyes, wondering what the hell he was doing as Jessica dug out a slim mobile phone. He should go home, but home—home still had a bathroom caked in blood, and anything, even a stupid mystery like this, seemed better than going back to face it.

There was a card in his pocket for a cleaning service. There were people whose job it was to magic away all signs of murder, and the thought twisted iron thorns through his chest.

“I don’t know your name,” Jessica said suddenly.

He didn’t open his eyes. “Xavier. Xavier Malach.” The shock of cool, clean water on his face summoned to mind a memory he couldn’t suppress and didn’t want to, even though it tore his heart into pieces. He heard her murmuring on the phone, and ignored her for the scene in his mind.

_Their first dance, when Xavier was fifteen and Al a year younger. Only Aleron had been called David then, fourteen and bright-eyed and the most gorgeous thing a teenage Xavier had ever seen._

_The flashing lights of the disco, the dancing bodies that were ignored in favour of his. The exchange of questioning glances, the currency of smiles and songs and hesitant want, dance after dance bought and paid for in sweat and heat and nervous laughter. Two teenage boys caught between wordless, half-innocent desire and the eyes of the chaperones, the crush of the crowd, the burn lacing the drinks spiked by some older attendee._

_It had been David—Al—who’d taken his hand and pulled them both outside, where the cool air had brushed over their skin like a caress. Fear and determination drawing a crease between his eyes, so startlingly lovable that Xavier had to kiss it._

_A moment’s hesitation, under the stars and an almost-full moon—and another kiss, longer, sweeter. Full of promises._

Promises that had been harshly broken, wrenched apart without warning. Years later, they had been renewed _—_ but now those new vows, too, had been rent and riven, love’s contract violently excised with the blood on a bathroom floor.


	3. Welcome to the World

_“Lisa, vampires are make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.”—Homer Simpson, ‘The Simpsons’_

 

The crash and thud of wood on wood filled the practice room as Aveyar entered, cradling the delicate human device in his hand. He didn’t trust the Second Sight glasses that most humans used to communicate these days—if a pair managed to record the goings-on of one of the outposts, it could prove disastrous—but since the Seeker and her healer had spent the last two decades playing human, the outpost required _some_ method of human communication. The sleek earpiece was a compromise, even if it was over ten years out of date; it worked, and it had no audio or video recording capabilities.

He didn’t take the earpiece directly to Vladishka, however. He paused to stand with the rest of the crowd watching his _mâéregel_ -princess spar with Syrelle, eyeing both of them carefully. His bright red eyes easily tracked the twin blurs as the two women flit back and forth over the practice mats, and it only took a moment for Aveyar to realise that Vladishka was toying with her opponent. Syrelle might be one of the most gifted of the _mâéregel_ ’s bodyguards, and those bodyguards might have been drawn from the ranks of the Civatateo—the elite force that served and shielded the obiric AnKi-or, the holy bloodline of god-kissed monarch-guardians set above each race—but even she was no match for the one they guarded.

As evidenced when, a shredded second later, Syrelle found herself on her back with the weighted end of Vladishka’s staff at her throat.

“Yield,” she said easily, and Vladishka grinned and helped her up.

The crowd began to politely disperse, and Aveyar approached. “Syrelle. _Mâéregel_ ,” he said respectfully, right fist over his heart as he bowed.

Vladishka raised a sculpted eyebrow at him. “It’s never a good sign when you turn all formal, Aveyar,” she commented, swinging her staff idly. The practice staves were barely wooden at all; just a thin layer of snakewood—one of the hardest woods on this planet—over a thick lead core. The extra weight was to help build up muscle. Their people needed all the help they could get in that regard. Vladishka’s whipcord body was at the very pinnacle of their strength—and most humans could have knocked her off her feet with ease. “What’s happened?”

Aveyar offered the device. “Eteire, _mâéregel_. She says it’s urgent.”

Vladishka’s mock-wary expression hardened as she took the phone and nestled it into her ear, and Syrelle and Aveyar exchanged pointed looks. Everyone knew how much Vladishka and Eteire hated each other; mutual loathing at first sight hadn’t abated with the years. Both of them expected their _mâéregel_ to shortly begin yelling down the phone line.

But she didn’t. The glamour—the spell of disguise—that she had worn since coming to this world made Vladishka’s skin appear slightly bronzed instead of obiri-pale, but whatever Eteire’s tinny voice said caused her to turn white as ivory. 

“It must be a test,” she told the machine, but with an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty that made both Aveyar and Syrelle sit up and take notice. “There’s no way she’d abandon us here. Especially not now. Either this is just another training exercise, or she’ll be back soon.”

Aveyar strained his ears. _“I have a human here wearing Nakir’s necklace,”_ Eteire’s electrically-distorted voice told him. _“I think it’s a sign. From her. I think he’s important somehow, Vee, and you’re more likely than I am to understand any message she left.”_

 _“Nakir’s_ necklace? The gold dragon?” Shock, and Aveyar was reminded suddenly, sharply, of how ridiculously young his charge was. Not even a century old yet, and already carrying the weight of Duranki on her shoulders. “That’s impossible.”

 _“Just get over here, Vee,”_ Eteire snapped. _“I’ll bring him to my place and you can meet us there. Because I don’t think this is meant to be a lesson. She_ knows _we’re helpless without her. This is real.”_

“Fine. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” Without awaiting an answer Vladishka disconnected the call. “How much did you two hear?” she asked bluntly.

Unrepentant, Aveyar made no attempt to apologise. “Nakir?”

Vladishka twirled the slim machine in and out of her fingers. “You missed some then.” She continued to stare at the earpiece, but already Aveyar could see her indecision dissolving before a tactical breaking down of questions into manageable pieces, a fierce frown carved on her face. “Let the others know I’m going out. I want everyone to drill for an extra half-jar while I’m gone.”

Aveyar didn’t ask why. He didn’t need to. Whatever had happened, it was enough that their _mâéregel_ thought her warriors might need the practice in the near future.

 )0(

Eteire banished the call function on her glasses with a flutter of her eyelashes, trying not to grind her teeth at Vladishka’s rudeness. Grimly, she returned  her attention to Xavier.

His eyes opened, as though he could sense her scrutiny.

She didn’t react. “If I asked you to come somewhere with me, would you?”

He raised an eyebrow mockingly, but it was a poor mask for the hard, brittle grief in his eyes. “Frankly, no. This has all been a fascinating coincidence, but I don’t know you from Eve. There’s no reason in the world why I should trust you.”

 _Maybe not in_ this _world,_ she thought, _but in any other you’d jump at the chance._ Not that she had expected a different answer. She wondered, briefly, what kind of life he’d led that he was so wary, so suspicious of people’s motives. Did that come from his time with the military, or had it begun earlier than that? Even a soldier shouldn’t suspect _her_ of danger—5’ 6’’ and petite, what harm could she do someone of Xavier’s obvious strength and size?

Her harmlessness was a façade, but that wasn’t the point. She had known he would say no, which was why in the moments between putting the phone away and walking over she had prepared a simple compulsion charm.

“Not even if I said it’s about Aleron?” The spell laced her words like a drug, a breath of ozone and a whisper of _yes, agree, give in, come, come, come._ “Another friend of his wants to meet you. None of us knew he was dead.” It didn’t matter what she said, of course. She could have sung him a nursery rhyme so long as the spell had something of her voice to work with. The charm was actually meant to compel unruly livestock—there were no compulsion charms for reasoning beings, because their mana protected them. But humans had no mana, because they were animals, and Eteire watched Xavier’s eyes glaze over and his face relax like clay smoothed beneath a potter’s hand.

He didn’t reply; he couldn’t. She smiled. “Come with me,” she ordered, and obediently the man rose up from the bench. He followed like a slightly clumsy mannequin as she led him through the streets to her apartment, only a few minutes’ walk from the park, in turn a brief walk from the cafe where she worked. He waited as patiently as a sentinel as she searched for her keys outside the door, and when she finally had it open and told him to “Sit”, he sat down like a well-trained puppy.

In the middle of the hallway.

Eteire pinched the bridge of her nose. _Stupid humans!_ “Go sit on the sofa. _In there_ ,” she added hastily in case Xavier went hunting for one somewhere else. She had forgotten how specific the instructions had to be with this kind of spell.

When the door was locked, she turned and considered him. Xavier sat neatly on the coffee-coloured sofa, like a particularly polite suitor meeting the parents before prom. His eyes were as blank as tinted glass. He could obey commands regarding the physical—stand here, close your eyes, that sort of thing—but his mind was asleep. He wouldn’t be able to answer any questions until she lifted the charm.

And he was soaking wet. On her sofa.

“Stupid human!” she snarled, beyond frustrated. With an angry flick of her fingers, she pulled the water apart into its molecular components, and the moisture vanished, reduced to separate particles of hydrogen and oxygen.

“There. Let’s see if you can stay out of trouble until Vee arrives,” she told the zombie, and left him sitting there as she went to make coffee. “Personally, I’m not betting on it.”

 )0(

Aveyar moved around to the pavement to open Vladishka’s door and help her out of the car. Not that she needed the assistance, but it was a game, and he grinned at her grimace as she took his hand and got to her feet.

She glanced at the car. “You don’t think it’s a little conspicuous?” she asked sarcastically, in English now as he locked the doors with a press of a button—much like a spell—and escorted her inside. “For all that you hate human technology, Aveyar, I think it must be bred into your gender to like cars.”

“Speed,” he corrected her. He glanced back at the Ferarri Seraph lovingly before the building’s door closed behind them. “I would rather a keriklor, but I think that would be even more conspicuous, _mâéregel_.”

Vladishka laughed. “Even humans would notice a dragon parked on the street,” she agreed, but her humour faded quickly as they climbed the stairs and they were both reminded of the reason for this meeting.

When they reached the fourth landing, Aveyar stopped. “I’ll wait outside, shall I?” he asked idly, as if he couldn’t sense the crackling, whipping energy coming from behind the door. The taste of a dam that would completely alter the course of fate’s river. Or perhaps the blow that destroyed the dam.

He had tasted it before.

“I think that would be a good idea,” Vladishka agreed. Without another word, she opened the door—it might have been locked, but no lock-hex of Eteire’s would keep her out—and slipped inside, closing it firmly behind her.

 )0(

Eteire felt the casual breaking of her wards before she heard the door, and bristled. Vladishka had brushed them aside like spider webs, but she knew full well that it hurt the caster like hell, and in what she knew was a petty revenge Eteire thumped down the second mug of coffee she’d been making. She left it on the counter when she went to greet the insufferable royal. Let Vladishka have a dry throat.

It wasn’t as if the bitch wanted _coffee_ to drink, anyway.

“Is this him?” Vladishka asked the moment Eteire left the kitchen. The words were English. She gestured at Xavier.

Eteire crossed her arms. “Of course it is,” she snapped. “Do you think I make a habit of bringing stray humans home?”

Vladishka’s expression assured Eteire that she couldn’t care less what Eteire did in her free time. “Why is he compelled?” she asked coldly.

“How else would I get him here? Not everyone has _xai_ to fall back on, you know.”

“Stop being a _leschn_ and think for a second,” Vladishka snapped. For an instant the glamour that disguised her wasn’t strong enough to hide the burning red of her eyes. “We can’t ask him anything when he’s like this, and he’s hardly going to be cooperative when he comes out of it, is he?”

Eteire spread her hands. “And? He’s as wary as a merai on land. He wasn’t going to come willingly, so I did what I could. You could try and be grateful.”

Vladishka snarled silently to show what she thought of that, then turned her attention to Xavier. A blonde-headed blur streaked across the room, and before Eteire could blink Vladishka was kneeling in front of the human.

“Couldn’t you scan him like this?” Eteire suggested after a minute of silence. Vladishka was staring at the necklace intently but not touching it. After a moment, she switched her concentration to the dog tags.

“No,” Vladishka said slowly, and Eteire knew she recognised the denominations on the tags. “A compelling folds up the mind and puts it to sleep. A mage might be able to, but I can’t. You’ll have to wake him up.”

Eteire shrugged, and with the motion let go of the charm holding Xavier’s mind in an opiate haze.

 )0(

Jessica was talking to him. Then she was gone—the rain, the park, her brunette hair and angled eyes vanished, replaced with _new unfamiliar whatisthis_ like a badly edited film.

Xavier froze.

The blonde stranger in front of him held up a hand. “Don’t be afraid,” she said calmly. “I’d just like to ask you some questions about your necklace.”

He barely heard her: his mind was spinning like a dervish, on the edge of panic as he fought to process _what the fuck just happened_. “Who—what—?”

The blonde shot a blue-eyed glare to Xavier’s right, and he spotted Jessica, sullen and sulky near the doorway. “I _told_ you,” the blonde hissed. “You could’ve been smart, could’ve been patient, but _no_ , you had to be a Vesh’dar-damned” she said a word he didn’t recognise, one he doubted he could even pronounce, all harsh vowels and bleeding-together consonants, “about it—”

 _Not human_ , something whispered, deep in his subconscious where racial memory became nightmares. Something about the blonde’s smell, the sharp line of her cheekbones like two knives, the way she held herself like something at the top of the food chain, _not human not human run run runrun!_

His panic was grasped, folded up and shoved down deep to deal with later; Xavier blinked and lashed out, the sole of his steel-capped boot connecting with a meaty _crunch_ ; blondie shrieked, Xavier pushed up and jumped over her as she crumpled; Jessica shouted—

And the door exploded inward.

Xavier flung his arms up to cover his face from the flying chunks and splinters of door. A male voice shouted _“Mâéregel!”_

“It’s all right, Aveyar, I’ll take care of Vee,” Jessica said as Xavier lowered his arms. She was somewhere behind him now. “If you could just restrain Xavier here while I heal her that would be great.”

There was a freakishly pale man in the doorway. He was wearing black gloves from which protruded long leaf-shaped blades, four of them growing from between his knuckles on each fist like a deformed Wolverine. Xavier didn’t stiffen up this time, but he didn’t move either. He wasn’t going to tangle with those knives if he could avoid it; his best bet was to wait for the newcomer to move out of the doorway so that Xavier could run past him.

He didn’t know what kind of insanity he’d stumbled into, but it was enough to convince him that Jessica and her friend didn’t deserve his guilt for leaving them to deal with it.

The man—Aveyar? There wasn’t time to think about the strangeness of the name—kept his eyes on Xavier. A part of Xavier’s mind wondered what kind of freak he was; was this a cult or a dangerously over-the-top roleplaying group?

Aveyar said something in a cold voice, maybe the same language the blonde had used, and Xavier had to shake his head. He was about to explain that he didn’t understand, when a response came from behind him. “Do as she says.” The pain-sandpapered voice probably belonged to the blonde Xavier had kicked; her voice was low and hoarse, forced out between gritted teeth. Xavier knew the tone. “And use English. Could you hurry it up, Et?”

Et now? Vee and Et? The only other person was Jessica; was it a nickname, or code, or what?

Maybe this _was_ some kind of Dungeons and Dragons group. The thought would have made him relax if he hadn’t been capable of telling that Aveyar’s blades weren’t meant for show.

“I’m _trying_ ,” Jessica said, and suddenly Xavier was on the floor with no memory of getting there and Aveyar’s glove-knives were pressed to his throat. “It would be easier if you stopped squirming.”

“Please be still,” Aveyar told Xavier, slowly and carefully as if he wasn’t accustomed to speech, but without a trace of an accent. “And do not attempt force,” he added politely. “You are outmatched.”

Xavier’s eyes narrowed. _Yeah, fuck that_. He relaxed his body, going limp as if in submission.

The moment Aveyar looked up at the two women—to ask something, to check on Vee, it didn’t matter—Xavier struck. One second: left hand to the wrist with the knives, right hand a fist to Aveyar’s throat. Two seconds: jack-knife upright and shove Aveyar back, twisting both his arms behind his back. Three seconds: right leg to enemy’s hip, flip him, and wrench his arms above his head as he lands on his back on the floor. Three point five seconds: transfer both Aveyar’s wrists to your left hand. Four seconds: grab the gun holstered at the base of your spine and press it to his forehead.

The man’s struggles halted instantly. From this close, Xavier could see that Aveyar’s eyes were red—not albino red, but bright, bloody crimson.

 _Contact lenses_. After the gloves, it didn’t surprise him.

 )0(

Vladishka snarled beside her and lunged forward, but the safety on the gun _clicked_ off andEteire grabbed her arm to hold her back.

The dog tags. _The dog tags._

After the London Eye bombing in 2019, Britain had granted certain regiments of its military the right to bear arms when off-duty. Eteire couldn’t tell one clade of humans from another, but she remembered reading that it had only been the elite of the elite who had been granted the privilege. Which meant that Xavier was almost certainly a truly deadly marksman, and she couldn’t let Vladishka set him off.

She might not like Aveyar, but she didn’t want to see his brains all over her floor.

Vladishka glared at her. _*What are you doing? Get that thing away from Aveyar!*_ her voice shouted in Eteire’s mind.

Eteire didn’t answer, just reached for her power and then the gun. Two simple charms, braided into one spell: one to keep the mechanism in the gun from firing, another to tear it out of Xavier’s hand. The simplest thing in the world...

Except that her mana slid off the gun like water on glass.

 _*What are you waiting for?!*_ Vladishka’s helpless rage shrieked at her, pulsing a furious, bloody red.

 _*I can’t spell him!*_ she snapped. _*It’s as if the gun is nulled. What do you want me to do?*_

_*Whatever it is Siav would do!*_

Eteire had no idea what Siavahda would do. The things Siav could do with mana—the vastness of her imagination, her creative thought—were far beyond a simple healer like herself.

“Xavier,” she said aloud, keeping her voice calm, “Put the gun away. We just want to talk.”

 )0(

“No, I don’t think so,” Xavier said without looking up. He kept his eyes on Aveyar, who was looking remarkably calm. He wasn’t going to let the other man pull the same trick Xavier had used. “I’m going to get up now, and I’m going to leave. I don’t know what’s going on here, and I’ll leave you to it, but I’m not interested in being a part of it.”

True to his word, he carefully got to his feet. The gun stayed trained on Aveyar, his aim unwavering. Xavier did not take kindly to having knives pressed to his throat, but he rode the adrenalin flooding his system expertly. It did not make him tremble.

He started backing towards the door.

“It’s about Aleron.”

 _Al_. Just hearing the name shredded something vital in him, but Xavier didn’t lower the gun—or answer. Aveyar was sitting up now, watching him warily.

  )0(

_*We can’t let him go. Not until we know why he has Nakir’s necklace!*_

Eteire grit her teeth. She wasn’t some servant to be ordered around: she wasn’t even an obiri, and thus Vladishka’s subject. Vee had no right to command her.

But she pulsed power through her fingers, and a wall of fire leapt up from the floor behind the only human in the room.

 )0(

Xavier heard the _whoosh_ of flame just as the heat punched into his back. Flames danced in the corner of his eye—

Aveyar _blurred_ , a streak of pale skin and dark hair across his vision—and then his fingers were stinging, and the gun was gone, ripped from his hand and thrown across the room.

“Are you insane?” he demanded—no one threw guns around like that outside of Hollywood, because there was a good chance that they could _go off_ and shoot you in the leg—before reality sank in.

Fire. Fire out of nowhere and men that blurred.

He whirled and stared in disbelief at the flames. There had been no explosion, no smell of petrol or any other kind of fuel. It could have been a hologram of some kind—it was utterly silent—but he could feel the heat on his face and through his clothes.

And Aveyar had _blurred_.

Something dark and cold was growing in the pit of his stomach, a kind of dawning fear and dread. He could almost, _almost_ see what was coming, the shape of it. It made that primal, animal part of his brain chitter with terror.

_not human not human nothumannot—_

He turned back around. Aveyar was standing a few feet away, a hard, wary look on his face, very different to the polite condescension of before. The two women were standing further back, but it was Aveyar Xavier addressed. “How did you do that?” His voice was calm and level, but his heart was pounding. The man had _blurred_.

“He’s an obiri,” said a cool businesslike voice, and Xavier’s eyes automatically flicked to follow it. It was the blonde who had spoken: blonde and goth, with black boots and jeans and a vest top that only made her look skinny and fragile despite the lean muscle on her arms. Her only accessories were a silver belt buckle and a black velvet ribbon around her neck, the latter decorated with an orb of blue goldstone the size of a thumb joint. It glittered like a piece of the night sky at her throat. “A vampire, to you. That means he is both faster and more dangerous than you. So if you could behave yourself for, oh, an hour or so, you can wake up in your own bed without any memory of this.”

 _Dangerous?_ Aveyar was fast, maybe, but it had taken Xavier seconds to get the guy on his back and under his gun—no euphemism intended. Aveyar knew his stuff, but that didn’t make him all powerful. _And vampires don’t exist. Not like_ that.

 _Yes they do_ , whispered his subconscious. It was not a verbal thought, but it was a real one accompanied by real fear. Not the kind of dread that bombs and bullets inspired. That was a realistic fear, one that could be faced, especially with the back-up of knowledge and experience. But the sight of the blonde woman triggered something primal, a terror that racial memory had kept alive in human DNA for just this situation. Something that screamed at him to _run_.

Or to just scream.

Xavier did neither. He casually hooked his fingers in his pockets. “A vampire?”

 _“Obiri.”_ The blonde walked to the sofa and sat down. “You can go, Aveyar.”

Aveyar looked as though he wanted to question the command—because it was a command—but he didn’t. “I will guard the door,” he said instead, and walked past Xavier without a backward glance.

The flames parted for him, and snapped shut behind him like a dragon’s jaws. 

 _A vampire. Who can control fire?_ Xavier glanced at the two women. _Or is it one of them?_

Taking a sideways step in his mind, he dropped himself into a very light trance, trying to open his senses to feel for power. He had never done anything like it before, but if he could feel the energy when he did a spell or preformed a ritual—alone or with others—then shouldn’t he be able to feel something now?

He couldn’t, though. Either there was nothing, or, more likely, he had no idea what he was doing.

“Obiri,” he said aloud, watching the women’s faces closely. “Sure. And I’m secretly the Easter bunny.”

“Oh, _goddess_ ,” Jessica burst out, “can we skip the masculine posturing and the cynical modern scepticism? Please. You saw Aveyar move. You saw me call up the fire. Let’s pretend we spent a good hour hashing out all the other unconvincing explanations for both those things and just accept that mana exists, ok?”

The blonde looked amused despite herself, but Xavier was still caught on that _goddess_. “Mana?”

Both women hesitated. “Magic,” the blonde said slowly. “Call it—magic. For the moment.”

“I know about magic,” he said warily, but beginning to be interested. Especially when the two women exchanged a pointed look at that declaration. “But vamps don’t actually have superpowers. And _no one_ controls fire with their mind. Or whatever it is you claim to be able to do.”

Both women frowned. “What kind of obiri do you know?” The blonde asked. Not so much curiously as with great intensity.

“Otherkin.” They both looked blank. “You know, the subculture? People whose souls aren’t human?” Still blank. “Vamps, elves, dragons, angels, all that kind of thing. Isn’t that what you’re talking about?”

“If their souls aren’t human, they must be incarnates,” Jessica said slowly.

“Can’t be. Incarnates are either here on a mission and keep quiet about it or they never regain their memories.” The blonde’s blue eyes looked Xavier over piercingly, like two knife-sharp icicles. “The people you know are charlatans. We are the real thing.”

Xavier remembered Nicholas, how sick he’d gotten when he went without blood for two weeks, the way his skin would be hot and red after a half hour in direct sunlight. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he said coldly.

“Did they flit?” Jessica demanded.

“What does that even mean?” Xavier parried.

She rolled her eyes. “Flitting is running—moving—faster than sound. Sometimes faster than light, if the obiri is quick enough.”

He had never heard or seen anything like that, not before Aveyar. She read it on his face.

“Obiri aren’t human,” she repeated. “They’re another race from a different dimension.”

“You keep talking as if you think I’m going to suddenly get interested,” he snapped. “I don’t care what you psychos have to say.” And he would leave, if it wasn’t for the fire still burning behind him. He turned to look at it, then to face it, giving the women his back because he was pretty sure he would hear them coming. They hadn’t moved when their friend was in danger, after all. They probably couldn’t fight.

“You said you knew about magic,” Jessica said, her voice full of restrained temper. “Did Al teach you?”

“No. He just practised with me.” The flames were completely silent. Was that because they weren’t actually burning anything? But he could feel the heat when he reached out his hand. They had to be real... How? How was it done? Some strange new accelerant?

“How?” Jessica sounded stunned. “That’s not possible. You’re human.”

“Yeah, and?” He reached out further, wondering if the fire would burn him, automatically envisioning a white glow of protection around his fingers.

For a split second he felt the hot sting of pain—and then the flames went out.

 )0(

It was the exact same pain as when Vladishka had broken through her wards, but for a moment Eteire couldn’t believe what her _ilnaiel_ sense—her ability to sense mana—was telling her. Of course Vladishka could break through her spells; the obiri AnKi-ja-morë was a Mahoroive, full to bursting with divine power. Anyone stronger or more skilled than Eteire could have undone the charm keeping the air aflame.

But humans had no mana. What Xavier had just done was impossible.

“Wait,” Vladishka said sharply as Xavier snatched at the door handle. “Xavier.” She paused. “Please.”

It was as impossible as a human breaking her spell, but Eteire’s ears assured her: Vladishka really had said _please_ , even if it wasn’t in her own language. And maybe Xavier instinctively felt how much it had cost Vee to say it, or heard it in her voice, because he stopped with his fingers on the handle.

“The necklace you’re wearing belonged to a friend of ours,” Vladishka said when it became apparent that Xavier was, if not going to stay, at least listening. “Someone very close to S—to Aleron. Jess and I are hoping that it might be a clue from Al.”

“What could it possibly matter?” Xavier asked after a moment. He hadn’t turned around. “He’s dead. That’s it. Game over.”

 )0(

 _The only clue he left was an ocean of red,_ Xavier thought brutally, cutting into himself mercilessly with his own words. _A clue to the fact that he was dying inside and I never saw a thing. The only clue I ever picked up on._

“Actually, it’s not.” Jessica now. “Aleron was like us.”

“And what, exactly,” Xavier asked coldly, “does that mean?”

The two women watched him without saying a word, and although neither of them moved, he had the sense that they were conferring with each other.

“Among several other things,” the blonde said finally, “it means that he isn’t dead.”


	4. Believe

_“I can believe anything provided it is incredible.”—Oscar Wilde_

_Blood. So much blood. The walls and floor are red like something alive, like flesh, like the petals of a rose, but this rose does not smell sweet. Rotting petals curved around a white heart, a body he knows so well, loved so well, cast off like a shed skin._

“Fuck you,” Xavier whispered.

Jessica scowled. “Excuse me?”

He was breathing, he must be breathing because he hadn’t passed out, but the oxygen sublimated in his lungs, turned to stone and ice and he was drowning on it. “I said, _fuck you_. How dare you?” His voice shook; rage, grief, disbelief, he couldn’t tell and couldn’t care. “How fucking _dare_ you? I—I can’t believe you would—that anyone would—” Oh, gods, Al’s face, slack and blank and _empty_ —Xavier felt the bite of salt in his eyes as his vision blurred, his throat burning as he struggled under the weight of the terribly fresh horror. “I saw the body, I’m the one who _found_ it—you think you can just—” He couldn’t bear the thought of breaking down in tears in front of these strangers, but the loss was so fresh, and so much more impossible to bear. “Where the hell do you get off on—on—”

Time skipped, jarring, and suddenly the blonde was inches away from him. Xavier flinched back, thinking of Aveyar, of those knife-gloves, but her eyes were soft. She raised her hand and touched her fingertips to his cheekbone.

He froze, shocked to the bone by the intimacy of the gesture.

She smiled, slightly, her gaze sympathetic and sad. Where her neck met her shoulder she had two neat, small scars, evenly spaced a few centimetres apart. Xavier thought of how Al had died and felt sick. “My name is Vladishka _na_ Vesh’dar Dracula-Imperial,” she said gently. “And I am sorry for your pain.”

He stared at her.

She let her hand fall. “Your sorrow is real, but the reason for it is not. Aleron is not dead. The death you saw was a lie.”

_Blank eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. The raw tragedy of a bloodied throat._

“That’s not possible,” Xavier whispered.

“Well, technically the person you knew as Aleron never existed,” Jessica said cattily. “But there you go.”

Slowly, gut-punched, Xavier turned his head to look at Jessica. “What?” His neurons  were sluggish, dizzy; his mind offered up thoughts of witness protection and false identities, but the idea didn’t hold water, didn’t hold the memory of Al’s blood all over the bathroom floor.

Jessica looked up at the ceiling with a _why me?_ expression. “Aleron’s real name is Siav. Siavahda. And _she_ ,” she stressed the word, “is not dead.”

It was stupid to have hoped. He hadn’t even realised that he’d begun to, hadn’t realised just how desperate he was to rewrite reality, that he would listen to this insanity. Now it came back to bite him, hard and bloody, and Xavier struggled not to let them see how their cruelty savaged him, shredding deep into his chest.

“You’re crazy,” he managed. “That was a game he played when—when we were kids. And you—fuck. _Fuck.”_ Tears, angry and despairing, clogged his throat like heartburn. Like shards of a shattered heart. “I’m not listening to his. You two can play your sick joke on somebody else.”

He went to move past Vladishka and collect his gun from the floor, but Jessica’s gasp brought him up short.

Her eyes were wide and shocked, her hand up to half-cover her lips. “She told you,” she breathed. _“She told you!”_

“Told me what?”

Vladishka eyed him speculatively. If she was as surprised as her friend, she didn’t show it. When she spoke, her voice was calm, measured, watching for his reaction.

“Siavahda Guinevere Riona Kalyia Iesadora Deja-rae Corchelle.”

Silence fell like velvet curtains, thick and heavy and chokingly soft, and at its centre the words Vladishka had spoken shone like a cluster of newborn stars. They tumbled through Xavier’s thoughts like a handful of eldritch gems, shining and burning in the light of almost, almost-remembered memories. Something breathless and taut closed Xavier’s throat, as if the words had a weight of their own.

Something…something he couldn’t remember…

It was like a pit opening up beneath his feet, the sudden sense that he was about to fall endlessly down…

“Does that mean anything to you?”

There was no pit. Sound returned, the real world snapped back into place, and Xavier nodded slowly, shaken. “Yeah, that might have been it. The name he made up. It’s. It’s been a while.” He hadn’t thought about Aleron’s delusions for years.

Had they had something to do with his suicide? But how could they’ve? It was just some miniature psychotic break back when they were teenagers. Puberty triggered all kinds of mental problems, but it had only been temporary. Al had never spoken of it again, after…

 _“She_ didn’t make it up,” Jessica said. “That’s her name. Seven names for the seven bloodlines she can lay claim to. And I can’t believe she’d tell a human anything!” she added, apparently to Vladishka.

Who was still staring thoughtfully at Xavier. “She told you when you were children?” she asked.

“Yeah, it was—some kind of game, or a dream, I don’t know—what the hell is this about? What does it matter what Al said back then? He’s—” He couldn’t force the word out.

“Siavahda Guinevere Riona Kalyia Iesadora Deja-rae Corchelle,” Vladishka said again, like the snap of bone, slicing through the grief gathering in again like carrion-crows before the vultures could land. “She is an AnKi-ja-morë and a changeling and a messiah, and she took a male, human body because she was running from the man who murdered her brother, and we thought Earth would be a safe place to hide. There are so many of you on this planet, and we thought we could vanish into the billions where he couldn’t find us. But now she’s killed her meatsuit, which means she has gone back to her _real_ body, the one she was born in, the one that is _worlds away from here_ , and she is alone and vulnerable in ways you can’t _begin_ to imagine, and you and that necklace are the only clues we’ve got. So don’t you _dare_ crumple, Xavier Malach. We don’t have time for that.”

He didn’t—he—“Al’s not dead?” he whispered.

Vladishka sighed. “I think you’d better sit down.”

*

“Jessica and I,” Vladishka said, gesturing to the brunette and to herself, “are not human. I am an obiri—what you would incorrectly call a vampire. Jessica is a lilitu.”

Jessica huffed. “You can stop with the charade, Vee.” To Xavier, she added, “It’s Eteire. My name, that is. Vee is trying not to give away my secrets without permission, but I think the cat is out of the bag at this point, don’t you?”

“This is crazy,” Xavier muttered, his head in his hands. “You’re insane. You’re _insane._ ”

“Xavier.”

But Aveyar’s speed, and the fire…

_“Xavier.”_

He looked up warily—and jerked backwards, so suddenly that he almost sent his chair sprawling. “What— _how are you doing that?”_

Jessica—Eteire—was standing with her hands on her hips—and her feet almost a metre above the ground. She hovered there with apparent ease, raising a single mocking eyebrow at his disbelief. “You wouldn’t understand the answer.”

Her ponytail nearly brushed the ceiling. Xavier’s heart hammered against his ribcage. “Try me.”

Eteire exchanged a glance with Vladishka, then shrugged. “I suppose the simplified version is that non-humans—the Anunnaki—can manipulate _mana_ , life-energy. And I, now, am using it to levitate.” She spread her hands. _Ta da!_

Xavier crossed the carpet and walked a wary circle around the floating woman. No wires. Nothing that could possibly explain what he was seeing. Unless he’d been drugged? Hypnotised? Which reminded him—“Did you use mana to bring me here?”

“I cast a little charm on you, yes,” she admitted blithely.

Going down on one knee, Xavier waved his hand beneath her feet, just to be sure. Nothing but empty air greeted him. “Like a date-rape drug.”

Above him, she just shrugged. “Humans have no mana. That makes you animals. If you’re waiting on an apology, don’t hold your breath.”

“Oh, I won’t,” he said coldly. Mana. Like magic—not the neopagan witchcraft he was familiar with, but storybook magic, able to summon fire and lift off from the ground. And steal a human’s mind, move their body without their consent.

The idea that he’d been so helpless, and never even known it—nausea broke like waves against his insides; bile touched his throat. He’d been able to fight back against Aveyar, but Eteire… She’d taken something from him. Something he’d never realised was so fragile, spun glass where he’d always believed it to be concrete, steel, diamond. His very autonomy.

 _Concentrate on Al. If he’s really alive…_ Could it possibly be true?

Vladishka was frowning slightly. “You’re taking this very well.”

He smirked at her, knowing it didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m suppressing a boatload of hysteria, I promise.” He glanced up at Eteire. “You can come down now, princess. I’m convinced.” He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him shaken.

She snorted, but slid to the floor as smoothly as if cradled in an invisible elevator. She dropped down into her seat with a flourish, propping her chin on her hand and smirking at him.

He thought of the hole in his memory, the missing time between the park and this apartment; thought of being vulnerable to this woman, ‘charmed’ by her, helpless against whatever power it was she wielded.

_That makes you animals._

He breathed in deeply, then out, willing his sick aftershock gone and pretending that it worked. “Tell me about Al.”

“Siavahda,” Vladishka corrected, gently but firmly. She paused, considering something. “It might be easier to explain the context of the situation to you before going into specifics.”

“But he—she isn’t dead.” Xavier stumbled over the pronoun, his tongue gone clumsy. Only now was it beginning to get through, their claim that the man he’d known and loved and lived with for years wasn’t a man at all. It was easier to envision Aleron as something not-human than as a woman.

“No. She isn’t.” Vladishka cocked her head. “Will you let me tell you a tale, Xavier Malach?”

Something in her voice hooked him, and he swallowed the quick, blithe answer waiting on his tongue. “How do you know my name?” he asked softly.

She gestured at Eteire without looking away from him.

“We don’t have time for this,” Eteire complained.

“Be silent,” Vladishka snapped, her eyes still locked with Xavier’s. “Well?” she asked him.

There was a weight to her question, something that might have been a challenge in her eyes. And a hunger, huge and desperate, in Xavier’s chest, for answers.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Tell me a story.”

She smiled, and he glimpsed sharp teeth.

*

“This is the First Tale as it was told to me, when I was young and my heart newly opened.”

They had dimmed the room, darkness drawn close as a lover, heavy on Xavier’s skin. Eteire had fetched eight white candles and arranged them on the coffee table; seven to form a circle and one at the centre. She made no gesture, but when she leaned back all eight wicks came alight at once, so suddenly that Xavier had to suppress a gasp. It didn’t look like a trick.

“Who are you to tell the First Tale?” Eteire asked Vladishka. All the sharp edges of her voice had been smoothed out and softened by what was clearly a ritual.

The seats had been pushed back; all three of them were on the floor. Vladishka and Eteire faced each other across the coffee table, while Xavier sat to one side, his legs crossed under him as he watched. He knew ritual. Whatever else had happened today, he had too much respect for the sacred to breach this moment.

“I am Vladishka, daughter of Zesangre, daughter of Sorina, daughter of Lysistre, daughter of Xaicandra, daughter of Altairul, son of Khardeen _na_ Vesh’dar.” Vladishka’s eyes glittered against the candle light. “My name is known. I know the tale.”

Eteire bowed her head. “Your name is known. You may tell the tale.”

Neither of them looked to Xavier. Vladishka dipped her head—not as deeply as Eteire had—and touched her middle three fingers to her brow, lips, and throat.

Then she began.

“This is the story that comes before all other stories, the first tale that is truth.” The scent of beeswax wove with her voice as the firelight ran golden fingertips over her face. Her hands moved as she spoke, in graceful, practised gestures that flowed with the rhythm of her words. “The first truth is Zysainae, She Who Is…”

 _Zysainae_. A name like the slash of a sword and a sigh.

“Zysainae woke alone into the before-time, and Her breath was mana, which is soul-stuff. She took Her breath and wove of it the web that is life, Duranki, the thousand-threads that make all that is real as strands in a tapestry, and everywhere that two threads crossed She breathed a world.”

Vladishka’s hands acted out the scene, so that Xavier could see this new-born goddess breathing into the void. He saw the mist of her breath condense into impossibly delicate chains of pure light, saw her pluck and weave the gleaming threads into a far-flung net that trawled the nothingness for nebulae and quasars. Vladishka’s fingers arced and danced and Xavier glimpsed the universe as a necklace, stars and planets strung across it like jewels.

“In this way Zysainae earned Her first aspect; Zysainae-Irkalla, the weaver.

“In Her joy in Her creation, Zysainae laughed, and from Her laughter came all green and growing things, blooming from the ground and blossoming into the sky on all worlds, and all were beautiful, and all were good.”

The shape of Vladishka’s wrists told him before her words could, weaving the images out of the candle light and the shadows: there were countless gemstones threaded onto the web, but at the centre one grew larger than the rest, swelling like a bud on roots of diamond.

“But the greatest was the first world, which fell in the centre of Duranki. Zysainae named this paradise An, which is _heart_ in the first tongue.”

The bud opened, blossoming into a swirl of opalescent blues and greens. Milky clouds kissed its surface, and Vladishka tossed a cluster of stars around it like diamond dust.

“But the other worlds had no names, and no people walked anywhere in Duranki, and Zysainae was alone, and lonely.”

Vladishka’s fingertips drew sorrow and longing in the air, evoking an inexplicable pang in Xavier’s chest.

“Zysainae wept, and from Her tears came the Erra, the first-born children.”

He almost thought he could see it; seven tears like gems falling out of the darkness onto a spider’s web of starlight, and where they fell, shapes coalesced, faces and figures…

“These were the Erra, the seven tears of Zysainae;

“White-haired Illianor, born first and greatest.

“G’reata, healer and nurturer.

“Studious Ronoc, keeper of knowledge.

“Deliaka, mischievous death-walker.

“Shikae, who stood between and beyond.

“Edonmor, who sang to the stones.

“Vesh’dar, last-born and Illianor’s twin.”

Xavier saw them all; Illianor with her tide of moonlight hair against her cinnamon-skin, standing tall and proud, and G’reata, her hair blue as paint framing a warm smile. Ronoc looked Asian, his eyes slanted; Deliaka was slender and pale, her hair the colour of blood and her lips curved with laughter. Shikae was androgynous and beautiful, with warm coppery skin and a secretive smile; golden antlers, many-tined, rose from Edonmor’s temples, with spirals and other symbols white as scars against his skin.

Vesh’dar mimicked Illianor in colouring, with hair like milk and skin like night, and Xavier couldn’t read his eyes.

“These were the Erra, and in their birth Zysainae became Zysainae-Nammu, the Mother.

“The Erra loved their mother, and loved the worlds She had made. They cast their own power through Duranki and shaped more life to share it with them; the animals and birds, the reptiles and the fish, the insects.”

He saw it all, unfolding in his mind so clearly he almost thought to see it with his eyes; the Erra laughing like children as they raised every kind of creature out of the earth and the water, shaping them like clay and breathing life into them: mice and moths and manatees, chipmunks and crabs and crows, scorpions and seals and swans. And things out of myth, creatures that turned his breath to ice in his throat with fear and awe and wonder.

“When they had done this, they made the _ooainyu_ , the ones-who-are-more: the fenrir and amphisbaena and all their kin.”

Xavier watched Vesh’dar call wolves as large as horses out of the tundra, saw G’reata give life to leviathans that could swallow cities. Deliaka called out to the sky and a phoenix answered, bright as a piece of the sun; so did eagles whose wingspan could swallow the same sun whole. Ronoc spilled his blood on the desert sands and winged lions roared into the heat, shaking the dust from their feathers. Shikae coaxed velvet-furred rabbits out from beneath a stone, rabbits whose ears looked like black-and-yellow butterflies and had leafy branches sprouting up from their heads; Edonmor stood in the midst of grasslands and brought forth animals crossed between deer and horses, with thick scales on their backs and antlers rising from their skulls.

And Illianor, first-born, watched the efforts of her siblings closely. Only when they were done did she step forward herself, and Xavier already knew, from the determined line of her jaw and the light in her prismatic eyes, that she would outshine them all.

As she did. It played out behind his eyelids: she took fire from under the earth and beyond the sky and spun dragons out of the golden flame, hatching them out of blue giants in the depths of space. They were enormous, some of them bigger than moons, as dazzling an array of colours as gemstones buried in the depths of the earth, glorious and magnificent—but she was not done. She caught starlight between her hands and dug diamonds out of the rock beneath her feet, and spun from them creatures much smaller than her dragons, but just as beautiful; like horses, but not horses, with shards of stars placed on their brows with which to pierce the night. No delicate, princessy unicorns these; smaller than the dragons, when they reared and the light splintered on their razor-edged hooves they seemed no less powerful, with thick, strong legs and tails that lashed and whipped like those of lions. A second, shorter mane ran down each unicorn’s tail, feathery as foam and bursting into fountainous plumes at the tip.

If it had been a competition, then Illianor had to have won.

“Zysainae-Nammu saw the creations of Her children, and saw that they were perfect. In Her delight, She gave to the Erra the _sacrym_ , the seven objects which would be channels for the Erra’s power.

“These were the seven _sacrym_ ;

“For Illianor, a wand.

“For G’reata, a prism.

“For Ronoc, a book.

“For Deliaka, a music box.

“For Shikae, a belled anklet.

“For Edonmor, a crook.

“For Vesh’dar, a spear.

“And the Erra’s creativity in their creations inspired Zysainae anew, and She breathed again upon the worlds, and where Her breath fell the Anunnaki woke into life.”

They woke as if from sleep, innocent newborns who could never be mistaken for human, even those of them who shared their shape with humanity. He saw a hundred children with a hundred different wings, dragon wings and gossamer insect wings and feathered wings like angels; children with fox tails and children who breathed underwater with fish tails in place of legs; children who turned into wolves and children who could turn into anything at all. He saw pale-skinned, red-eyed children like Aveyar, and children with pointed ears who lived underground in cities of stone; children who became shadows and children whose corpses dissolved into ashes, from which they were reborn like phoenixes. They had white skin and dark, red and brown and yellow, lavender and metallic gold; they had scales and feathers and fur; they were tattooed and painted, pierced and scarred, decked in jewels or garbed in nothing but sunlight. They had two genders or one or six or none at all. Their eyes were wild, impossible colours, electric blue and silver and amethyst-purple, with orange pupils or black whites; some had three eyes or just a third eyelid to protect them in the sea or the sky.

They didn’t evolve. They were simply born, all at once, in their countless variations.

“The Anunnaki were many, and each was different from every other, but all could think and reason. And Zysainae loved them, and the Erra loved them, and the Anunnaki returned love for love. Zysainae gave each race of the Anunnaki a home of their own, a world, and taught them how to travel through Duranki’s threads to reach any other place they willed. In those days to travel so was as easy as walking through a door, as it is not now.

“Thus began the Acheringa, the golden time when all was perfect. The Erra walked among their younger siblings, and taught them much.

“These were the seven gifts given to the Anunnaki by the Erra;

“Illianor taught them how to use the mana within themselves and their worlds to work miracles.

“G’reata gave art, so that the Anunnaki could make without mana.

“Ronoc gave language, so that all could communicate and write.

“Deliaka taught the Anunnaki to make music.

“Shikae taught them to dance.

“Edonmor taught them husbandry; how to care for the land and waters and all that dwelled in them.

“Vesh’dar gave _järkevyys_ , which is logic.

“Then Zysainae said to Her children, ‘I too have gifts for the Anunnaki.’ And for each race of the Anunnaki She wove a web of light and love, a _heyona_ , and in this way the hearts of all mortals within each race were bound together for all time, so that none could turn from another’s suffering, or be blind to another’s pain.

“And when She was done Zysainae walked among the Anunnaki for a long while, telling no one what She searched for. She walked amongst each people and in every people, She blessed one person, leaving a kiss on the person’s brow.

“Then She said to all, ‘Those I have kissed will be the guardians of their people, and their heirs will be guardians after them. They will stand at the centre of the _heyonae_ of their people, and so they will be AnKien, for they stand at the centre as An stands at the centre of Duranki.’

“And the Anunnaki said to Zysainae, ‘But we cannot see the mark of your kiss. How will we know who is to be AnKi?’

“Said Zysainae to them, ‘Those I have kissed can see the marks on those others I have kissed. In this way the AnKien will police themselves, for should any claim to be AnKi without My mark, the AnKien of other peoples will strike that one down.’

“The Anunnaki were satisfied, and the AnKien rose to guide and guard.

“In this way all was peace, and all was joy, for many times.”

Her gestures were like sign language, Xavier realised suddenly, each one with a specific meaning. Like dance steps, graceful and evocative, each intended to draw a specific picture in the minds of those listening. She wasn’t making them up as she went along; like the story, they had been learned by rote.

The thought chilled him. If the tale was memorised word for word—and the gestures with them—how old might it be? How many others had heard this story, just as he was doing now?

No, not _just_ like this. She had to be translating. The original tale couldn’t possibly be in English.

But Vladishka was still speaking. “But the Anunnaki were mortal, and after a time death came to them, and they grew afraid. And Vesh’dar said to them, ‘Be not afraid, for I will hold your hand as you lie dying, so that you will not face death alone.’ But the Anunnaki were still afraid.

“Then Deliaka said to them, ‘Be not afraid, for when my brother Vesh’dar lets go your hand I will take it, and I will lead you into the darkness, and walk there with you.’ But the Anunnaki were still afraid.

“Then Zysainae-Nammu said to them, ‘Only your bodies will die, but your souls will come to Me in An until you are ready to be reborn, and then I will give you new bodies.’ And the Anunnaki were afraid no more.

“In this way peace and joy were restored, for ten times ten times ten generations.”

Vladishka stilled and fell silent. She held her hands in her lap and said not a word.

Xavier thought of how it was forbidden to translate the Quran into another language, so that the original meaning could not be corrupted or lost; thought of how new copies were made exactingly, without a single word changed. He wondered if it could possibly be true, that the story Vladishka had just told could be sacred in the same way, could have been held unchanged in the hearts of so many for so long.

Ten times ten times ten generations.

They sat in silence for eight breaths before Vladishka spoke again.

“This is the end of the first tale. Here begins the second.” And she raised her hands once more.

“After ten times ten times ten generations, the Anunnaki began to wonder why the Erra did not die. They asked the Erra, and the Erra said to them ‘We do not know. Ask our Mother.’

“So the Anunnaki asked Zysainae-Nammu, and She said to them ‘The Erra are my firstborn children, and they will never die as you do.’

“And the Anunnaki grew jealous of the Erra, for death was terrible, and those who had died could be spoken to no more by their loved ones. The Anunnaki wished to be like the Erra, but could not be, and their hearts were darkened by this knowledge.

“The darkness spread like a poison throughout the many races, and from it was born a new being: _Kuvahlai_.”

Vladishka spat the name like poison, and it struck Xavier like acid, a sharp, bitter blast of hatred and fear. Vladishka’s hands made short, sharp gestures, as if handling something unclean and eager to be done with the task.

“Kuvahlai, the unborn, alone among Duranki not birthed of Zysainae-Nammu. Kuvahlai soul-poison, that-which-is-wrong, first liar. Mortal fear and mortal hate given unlife by the very strength of that fear and hate.”

He saw black smoke rising from the hearts of discontented people; people who, though not human, shared humanity’s fears. He saw the smoke gather itself into a cloud behind them, where they could not see.

“Kuvahlai was not born, and so It had no shape of Its own. Thus It shaped Itself as It willed, into a form of such beauty that all who looked upon It felt their eyes burn and their hearts shudder with that longing which is as venom to reason.”

The smog coalesced into a humanoid shape, and Xavier swallowed hard, because that shape—it was human, almost, two arms and two legs and no wings or tail, no claws or feathers or scales or fur. And yet it was not, could not have been human. The creature blazed like sunlight on ice, blinding and deadly, beauty drawn around it like a poison. It mimicked maleness, with a fall of golden hair like a river of honey and castor-flower lips against skin so white it glowed—water hellebore white, radioactive white.

“In this guise, It approached Zysainae. And Zysainae knew It for a thing which had not come from Her, and She was curious. For in Duranki She knew all things, but this was a thing She did not know, a new and beautiful thing.

“Said Zysainae, ‘What are you, and from where have you come?’

“And Kuvahlai—who was not named then, but nameless—knelt before Her, and said to Her, ‘I have no name, and I know not from where I come. I am alone. The Anunnaki are many, and the Erra are seven, but there are none others like me in all Duranki. I am alone, and my heart is breaking with my aloneness.’ ”

The monster made a beautiful picture kneeling before the creatrix, unbearably lovely. And perhaps unbearably lonely, too. Human women throughout history had fallen in love with the pain of men, even when that pain had a serpent’s fangs. Perhaps goddesses weren’t so different.

“Ai!” Vladishka’s voice creaked with grief. “If only the betrayer had not worn such a guise! If only Zysainae had looked past the mask of beauty to the rot within! But the web of life was young then, and lies unknown; Zysainae heard the liar’s tale with no knowledge of untruths. She was young in the way of gods, and She, too, was alone, with no partner and no mate, no kind or kin. And She remembered Her loneliness before the birth of the Erra, and Her heart was filled with compassion.

“ ‘I am alone also,’ She said to the liar, ‘but perhaps we can be each other’s kind.’ And because She had compassion, and because It was a new and beautiful thing, She named It Eronwa, which means _unknown_ , and took It as Her consort.

“And in this way Zysainae earned Her third aspect, that of Zysainae-Anosia, the lover.”

Xavier felt his skin crawl as the goddess took the beautiful monster by the hand and raised it up from its knees. She murmured its new name against those toxic lips, and bile burned in Xavier’s throat—even as some terrifying part of him twisted with jealousy.

“Kuvahlai strove to please Zysainae in every way, and in every way It succeeded, and Zysainae-Anosia was besotted. It charmed the Anunnaki with sweet, clever words, but the Erra were not so easily seduced.

“ ‘Where has It come from?’ said Illianor.

“ ‘Something of Its speech troubles me,’ said G’reata.

“ ‘How can any thing come to be without the power of our Mother?’ said Ronoc.

“ ‘Its manner repels me,’ Deliaka said.

“ ‘There are secrets in Its eyes,’ said Shikae.

“ ‘The animals will not walk where It has walked,’ Edonmor said.

“ ‘It means ill,’ said Vesh’dar.

“With Vesh’dar’s words all the Erra agreed, and they made a pact to keep watch on the one they knew as Eronwa.

“But the pact came too late, for the liar had walked much among the Anunnaki, and its sweet words were almond cakes baked around broken glass, and in swallowing the sweetness the Anunnaki took into themselves the shards. The one known then as Elonwa encouraged the Anunnaki’s jealousy, tending to their envy as a gardener to her prize roses, and as the roses flourished so did the liar’s power grow, for Its strength was tied still to the hearts of mortals. And it had grown strong, terribly strong, by the time It overheard the Erra’s pact.

“It struck then. It went to Zysainae-Anosia, and when Zysainae opened Her arms for love the betrayer sent Its power against Her as to a bolt of black lightning. And as Its substance was fear and hate so Its power was poison to Zysainae.

“Zysainae cried out, and the Erra heard Her cry. They came to Her aid, Her seven firstborn; armed in mana and armoured in glory they came, all seven.

 _“Ai!”_ Xavier jumped at Vladishka’s sudden wail of grief, unreserved and shocking for the raw lash of it. She bent over her knees, curling her hands into fists and pressing them against her forehead. “See them, firstborn of Duranki, ranged against the Enemy! See them stand as one, brightest of all, first-to-breathe! They did not flinch, the Erra, most-beautiful, even when they knew themselves outmatched. For their Mother and Duranki they fought, for their mortal siblings who returned the Erra’s love with fear they fought, and they did not flee even as they fell.

“G’reata of the warm smile fell first, her ever-open heart swept from Duranki forever in a storm of black fire. _Ai!_ Weep for her!

“Edonmor was next to fall. His antlers were shattered forever. _Ai!_ Weep for him!

“Ronoc fell third, and his blood spelled grief on the ground. _Ai!_ Weep for him!

“Shikae fell fourth, choking on the betrayer’s poison. _Ai!_ Weep for eir!

“Deliaka fell into death, her laughter silenced forever. _Ai!_ Weep for her!

“Illianor and Vesh’dar stood together at the end, and they fought long and well, but they too were cut down. They fell hand in hand. _Ai!_ Weep for them!

“Weep for them all, the firstborn seven who fell to the hate of the Anunnaki! Weep for them, betrayed by their mortal siblings!”

Xavier breathed deeply past a catch in his throat. His eyes stung, shockingly, unbelievably. But he couldn’t remain unmoved by the tragedy of it, the bright, glorious Erra destroyed like pinched-out stars.

 _It’s only a story,_ he told himself. It didn’t help the ache of guilt and sadness in the pit of his stomach, but he pretended that it did.

Vladishka straightened up. The candlelight turned the tears on her cheeks to crystal. If she was ashamed or embarrassed to be crying, Xavier couldn’t tell, and her voice didn’t falter as she continued. “So did the one known as Elonwa earn the name Kuvahlai, that-which-is-reviled. For Its crimes It earned this name.

“Kuvahlai turned from the battlefield. From the fallen Erra It turned, and It went to Zysainae. Here It discovered that It had not the strength to murder the Mother as It had Her firstborn, only weaken Her. And, weakened, Zysainae could not prevent Kuvahlai from imprisoning Her. Kuvahlai, first-liar, betrayer, poison-tongue, built a prison around An, and locked Zysainae within it, and Zysainae could not free Herself.

“And when It was satisfied that Zysainae was ever-bound, Kuvahlai released the beautiful form It had taken, and as hatred, which cannot be seen or smelled or weighed, It dissolved Itself into the web that is Duranki. There It remains, a rot upon the tree, a poison in the vein, to this very day.

“Thus ended the Acheringa, the golden age, and thus ends the second tale of truth.”

This time Xavier expected the silent pause. Shaken, touched somewhere down deep by their story, he counted the women’s breaths—eight deep breaths, slow and regular—until Vladishka began again.

“Here begins the third tale, which is short and secret.

“In Her prison, Zysainae was weakened, injured by Kuvahlai’s treachery and cut off from the mana that is Duranki. But She was not destroyed. Unable to break free, She used the last of Her strength to shape locks for Her prison, a door where none had been before.

“And the locks numbered five, but they had no keys.

“Zysainae had no power left to make keys. But She made a great working from within Her prison—a great working, and a slow one. Her spell would gather stray motes and specks of mana to itself, and slowly build five keys for the five locks of the creatrix’ prison, mote by mote and speck by speck. And when the five keys were forged, they would be souls, and the souls placed in living flesh, and these five would be the Mahorela Aoiveae, the Stars That Light the Dark Heavens. And these five would free Zysainae.

“Zysainae knew that the Mahorela Aoiveae would need to be protected. She placed in Her working code that would house each Mahoroive in flesh that would have power and prestige, so that the Mahorela Aoiveae would not be without resources and allies in their quest.

“Then She used the last, the very last, of Her strength, to send to certain prophets and AnKien dreams of the Mahorela Aoiveae, so that the Anunnaki could prepare for their coming.

“And with that, Her power ran dry, and none among the Anunnaki know now how Zysainae-Nammu fares within An.

“Here ends the third tale.”

*

After blowing out the candles, Eteire brought back the light with a gesture and went into the kitchen without a word to either of them. Xavier couldn’t complain; having her out of his immediate vicinity was a thorn pulled out of a wound.

“It’s a beautiful story,” he said, when Vladishka made no move to speak. “But what does it have to do with me?”

_With Aleron?_

“Everything. And little.” Vladishka shrugged with her wrists. “The riptide does not care for who gets caught in it, and you are caught, I think. At least for a little while.”

 _Riptides kill._ He didn’t say it. “Why did you tell me those stories?” he asked again. “They’re clearly important to you. Holy, maybe. Why share them with me?”

“Because when such things are spoken of, they must be said a certain way.” Her voice was a little hoarse. “And because Siavahda is one of the five. To know anything, you need to know what that means.”

“One of—” He stopped. Tried again. “The Mahorela Aoiveae?” He sounded the words out carefully, trying not to mangle to pronunciation. They still felt uncertain in his mouth, like jagged pebbles. “Al—he—she’s supposed to save a goddess?”

“More than a goddess,” Eteire said, appearing over his shoulder. Xavier didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing. The tilt of her lips had a cruel edge as she stepped around him to place a cup of tea in Vladishka’s hand. Xavier could smell the honey in it. “The web of Duranki is poisoned. Sooner or later, it will become so weakened that it will break. What do you think will happen if the bonds of reality snap?”

Nothing good.

Vladishka sipped her drink. “With An cut off, there is nowhere for the souls of the dead to rest,” she said quietly. “The promise of rebirth is no longer a surety. What happens to a soul when its body is cold and there is nowhere for it to go?”

Nothing good. Xavier closed his eyes, struggling to accept what they were saying. It felt…too unreal to be real. More like the plot of a film or novel than anything that could really touch him.

“You said Al isn’t dead,” he said quietly. “Tell me about that.”

The women glanced at each other. Vladishka made a gesture, so quick he nearly missed it, and Eteire nodded and turned to Xavier.

“The tales don’t say whether Kuvahlai was aware of the creation of the Mahorela Aoiveae. But It must have been.” She spread her hands. “Maybe It sensed the ripples made when Zysainae’s spell was almost completed. We don’t know. But we know It acted. Millions of those sensitive to the ephemeral felt It become manifest for a time, centuries ago. At first no one knew what It had done, but later we learned that It had fathered children on mortals.

“We call them the Vovix.

“There can only be five of them, because they can only mirror the space made by the Mahorela Aoiveae. Reality will allow balance, but there is no room for a sixth Vovim. If Kuvahlai tried to make a sixth, It might well be destroyed by the attempt.” She bit her lip, a display of nerves Xavier wouldn’t expect from her. “We hope there are only five.”

“Their leader is Daeron.” Vladishka lowered her cup to rest on her knee. They were all three still sitting on the floor. “My mother’s step-brother. He came into his powers when Siavahda ascended to hers. They are counter-weights, opposing forces. His power takes control of the mind; hers seeks and protects. Both must find the rest of their set as quickly as possible, because whichever set is completed first will most likely win. Should the Vovix step into the locks binding An, they will destroy it. If the Mahorela Aoiveae do so, Zysainae will be freed and _kasadu_ , the threads of Duranki, will be cleansed of Kuvahlai’s poison.”

Her eyes stayed on him, and Xavier tried to think of a synonym for them. Icy, like knives—the clichés didn’t do the colour or expression justice. Meeting her gaze was like staring down the barrel of a gun. “Daeron has spent years trying to kill Siavahda. No one knows where humans come from—their creation has no truth-tale—but we thought we could hide from Daeron here.”

“Anunnaki come to this dimension sometimes,” Eteire explained. “To study humanity, or to escape their own lives. If someone lost their entire family, they might choose to have their soul incarnated in a human body, their memories suppressed. They are born human, grow up human. It is a new start.”

“They choose where their souls go? How is that possible?”

“Complicated magery that is beyond either of us,” Vladishka said wryly.

“That’s what Siav and I did,” Eteire explained. “We took human bodies here. Our memories were placed under a time-lock, so that they would come back after we had acclimatised to this world.”

Xavier, trained by his years with the Marines and then the Special Air Service, saw the implications at once. They chilled him. What Eteire was describing was the perfect undercover agent—one whose cover could never be blown because there _was_ no cover, a spy who could place themselves anywhere, who could pass for a native because in a very real sense they _were_ natives. They grew up human, but when their memories were returned to them… You would only need a small number of them to destroy the UK from the inside out.

Eteire shrugged. “I picked a female body. Siav chose to go male. After the research she did on your species, she thought it would be easier than being a woman here.”

 _Aleron is a woman._ That overwhelmed every other thought. Not human, but not even male? What did he— _she_ look like then? Did she have wings? Tri-coloured eyes? Was she a snake below the waist, did she turn into a wolf? And some kind of chosen one, a soul forged to save a goddess—why had Al never told him? Why keep all this a secret? Clearly she could have proved it, just as Eteire and Vladishka had. Al—Siav, too, could have levitated and made Xavier believe.

Gods, this was _insane!_

“So when… When the human body died…?” It was insane, all of it, but he so badly wanted to believe it. Wanted it to be true. He couldn’t imagine being in love with a woman, but—but Siav was still the same person, wasn’t he—she? She must have Al’s laugh. Maybe her eyes would be strange colours, but they would be Al’s eyes, wouldn’t they? She would still hate peanut butter and love European chocolate and rescue baby birds from cats, wouldn’t she?

They could work it out. They could _try_ , _had_ to try, because if any part of Aleron was still alive then Xavier didn’t know how to walk away from it.

“When the human body died, she returned to her own.” Vladishka’s voice, suddenly gentle. “There is no doubt on that score.”

_Alive, alive, alive!_

“I need to see him.” The words broke free before he knew they were forming, but he didn’t take them back. Could not, not when it would mean the death of that death, not when it could just maybe erase the horror he’d walked in on, the sight of Al’s eyes gone opaque and barren. “Her. _Her_. I need to see her.”

There was a pause.

“That may be…difficult,” Vladishka said finally.

“Why?” Xavier demanded. Antifreeze pooled in his veins. Was it all a lie after all? Was he wrong to lunge for this, to believe in this even for a moment?

Eteire licked her lips. “A long time ago, the Anunnaki visited your world. Not just one or two, but many. That’s where your myths of gods and vampires and all the rest comes from.”

“But the Anunnaki behaved badly, to say the least, and the AnKien ordered them to withdraw.” The guardians, Xavier remembered as Vladishka went on. “To protect humanity, they had the strongest mages of that generation place a null around your world—a barrier that prevented mana from being used there. That way no non-human would willingly visit, or be able to do much harm if they did.”

“Over time, the null developed small holes,” Eteire added. “They allowed small numbers of Anunnaki to move back and forth between Earth and the other worlds, as we did. Even once we were incarnated here, we could go back to our original bodies while we slept. But mana still couldn’t be used here until Siav edited the null’s coding, just a few months ago. In effect, she told the null to make an exception for herself, Vee and I.”

“But in the process,” Vladishka said softly, “she accidentally closed the gaps in the null.”

“She trapped you here,” Xavier murmured.

Vladishka nodded. “Killing her host-body was the only way for her to reach home. But we can’t contact her to ask her why she left.”

“And that, little ape, is where you come in.” Eteire cocked her head at him. “Right now, _you’re_ the only clue. You and that necklace.” She pointed at the dragon pendant at Xavier’s throat.

He reached up to touch it. Stopped himself, and deliberately laid his hand back in his lap. “How am I a clue?” he asked frostily.

“That pendant belonged to…an old friend of Siav’s,” Vladishka said carefully. “What can you tell us about it? Why did she give it to you?”

He resisted the urge to hold it, to feel the dragon’s wings press into his palm. “It was an anniversary gift from Al.”

She stared as if Xavier had just announced that he was from Mars, and then whirled on Eteire. “You didn’t tell me Siav was _dating_ him!”

“Well, she was,” Eteire snapped. “Don’t ask me why. Maybe her blood’s finally gotten the best of her—”

Vladishka snarled, drowning out whatever more Eteire had meant to say, and this time Xavier was sure: her canines were longer than they should be, not the neat ivory needles of Hollywood but elegantly vicious star-splinters extending from both her upper and lower jaws, and racial memory turned Xavier to stone, his lizard brain screaming for him to _keep still, keep still and don’t move and maybe it won’t seeyounoticeyou ripyoutoshreds—_

“Be _silent,”_ Vladishka—obiri, _vampire_ —hissed. “Nu vorbi de ceea ce nu înteleg!”

“Nu esi AnKi-ja-morë meu!” Eteire bristled, baring teeth of her own—thankfully blunt and human. “Tu nu-mi ordona!”

“Eu sunt Mahoroive!” The sound Vladishka made froze the blood in Xavier’s veins. “Eu ordona toate.”

“You’re telling him everything else, why not this as well?” Eteire demanded, switching back to English. She whirled on Xavier. “Wouldn’t you want to know if your girlfriend was a nutcase?”

“Don’t talk about Al like that.” His voice cut free like a bullet, cold fury slicing through the vampire-inspired terror. “Don’t you dare.”

“See?” Vladishka gestured to him, vindicated. “Even the human has more respect for her than you do!”

Eteire snorted with disgust. “She’s a changeling,” she told Xavier. “Siavahda. She has seven names because her family tree is a mutated mess, full of inter-world pairings; arkadians and syvinae and feliduy, and more besides! It’s not like a Spanish human having a child with a French one; syvinae and feliduy are different _species_. Everyone knows changelings are unstable, and Siav’s not even a chimera, a hybrid, who are nearly sane; she’s a _skinchanger_ , which is a _thousand_ times worse. And one of these days she’s just going to _lose it_ and there’ll be nothing anyone can do about it!”

Vladishka was abruptly on her feet. “Get out.” Her voice was soft and utterly, immeasurably dangerous.

Eteire looked up at her, scandalised. “This is my apartment!”

“I don’t care.” The blonde was a short, slender young woman, but in that moment Xavier would not have tangled with her for the world; because in that moment the shadows seemed to cloak her, and her eyes were two bloody stars burning in the darkness, immeasurably inhuman. “I have never understood why you wanted to come to this world with us; nor do I know why Siavahda allowed it. But you will get out, now, or you will regret it.”

Xavier watched as a ghostly pallor swept over Eteire’s face. The whites of her eyes were suddenly large, swollen. “I…” She swallowed hard. Without another word, she rose to her feet and stumbled away to the front door, walking as if drunk.

Xavier wondered if he should feel glad to see her go, or if he ought to be wishing he was fleeing with her.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Vladishka said formally. She sank down to the floor once more. Her eyes were blue again.

Xavier’s mouth was a desert; he could almost taste the sand. He swallowed. “Can I ask…what was that about?”

Vladishka hissed, softly. It was still enough to send electric prickles skimming down Xavier’s spine. “Eteire slurred Siavahda, and I did not stand for it.” She sighed. “It’s true, Siav is a skinchanger. She is…fragile. But she is not about to break.” She spoke firmly, and Xavier wondered, with a flicker of unease, who she was trying to convince.

 _Sane, stable people don’t kill themselves_ ,a voice whispered. He tried to push it away. _They explained that._ “I don’t understand. What’s a skinchanger?”

“A kind of changeling. Where chimeras are hybrids, with some of the physical traits of each parent, skinchangers…” Vladishka sought the right words. “They can take the pureblooded form of any race in their ancestry. It is like having more than one body, really. If Siavahda takes a wound in her felidae form, her arkadian one is unharmed.”

Xavier’s mind spun, trying to understand what she was saying.

“It is no bad thing,” Vladishka said firmly. “Zysainae placed Siav in the position of greatest power. She is AnKi-ja-morë to Ixis—guardian-heir to the only multi-world empire in the known worlds. So, yes, she is descended from seven separate AnKi-oren, seven guardian bloodlines. Which means seven races, since each race has only one AnKi-or. But she will rule the empire someday, with seven armies to lead against Daeron.”

The blows just kept coming, dizzying shocks with no time to recover between each one. “She’ll rule—Al—Siav is some kind of princess?”

“Not as you understand the term,” Vladishka said dismissively. “An AnKi rules over their world, not simply one land. They must guard and protect all of their people.” She shrugged. “But of course, there are many lesser rulers who serve under the AnKi, since no one person can attend to all the concerns of one planet.”

“Or seven,” Xavier said weakly. Because this Ixis, this empire, contained seven worlds. The thought of it… He couldn’t comprehend it. How could anyone?

“But none of this is of central importance.” Vladishka’s expression sharpened. “I would like to have some answers from _you_ now, if I may.”

Numbly, Xavier nodded, his thoughts still racing in useless circles.

“You knew Siav when you were children, you said before?”

Xavier nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly, wishing he knew what use such information could be. Then he would know how much to give—and how much to keep back. He forced himself to focus his attention back on the matter at hand, and tread carefully. He couldn’t get the sight of those fangs out of his mind. “He—she—”

Vladishka’s face gave nothing away. “She. Siav is female.”

 _As if it’s that easy_.

“She,” Xavier said quietly, testing it out, tasting the pronoun on his tongue—such a tiny word, to mean something so different, “was called David back then. When we were kids.”

“I know,” Vladishka said when he paused there. “When she regained her memories, she took her brother’s name.” At his frown of confusion—Aleron had never had a brother—she elaborated. “Not here; at home. Daeron killed him when we were younger.”

 _And he—she—took the name?_ Why? It disturbed him to think that every time he’d called his lover’s name, he’d been reminding him—her—of her murdered brother. _Why would she want that reminder?_

Was Eteire right? _Was_ the ma—the person he loved mentally unstable? _But wouldn’t I have known before now?_

“Oh...” What could you say to that? “Well, h—she—she started having strange dreams. When I was about fifteen. Intense, weird fantasy stuff. Every time she fell asleep.” He had to consciously think about the pronoun. It didn’t roll off his tongue. “Then it was every time h—she closed her eyes. Even during the day. She didn’t have to be asleep to have these little films playing in her head; it started scaring her.” It was painful to remember; the confusion, the growing fear that something was deeply wrong with the boy he loved. “She started having issues with her body. Dressing differently, growing her hair out. She even walked differently. Got changed in private for gym class. Once I found her staring in a mirror, crying.

“That was when she tried to tell me what was really going on.”

He paused. Even now—maybe especially now—it sounded so crazy. “He—she said that she didn’t fit in her skin. That her body was wrong. She said she thought she was a girl, and she wasn’t human. She was from another world—or maybe a lot of other worlds, I didn’t really understand.” His chest felt tight. “I guess I should have listened. I tried to.” He breathed in deeply, trying to force his lungs to relax. “But then my parents died. Car crash. I went into foster care and didn’t see him— _her_ again for years.” He shrugged. “And when I did, she’d changed her name to Aleron and never brought any of it up again.

“That’s all I knew about any of this until today.”

Vladishka nodded slowly. “That might be so,” she said consideringly after a moment, “but I am intrigued by you nonetheless. You won Siav’s affections, which should not have been possible. You are evidently not _ĕ_ _ronk_ _ō_ —”

“Pardon?”

Vladishka’s lips quirked. “It means someone who is attracted to only one gender. Among the Annunaki, it is considered…bizarre. Even barbaric.”

Xavier’s eyebrows shot up. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re mistaken. I bat for just the one team.” On another day, it might have made him laugh, but now he knew that Al was a woman...  It complicated things. “I’ve never had anyone make _that_ assumption before when they heard I had a boyfriend.”

 _Had_. Would it stay past tense, if he could just talk to Al—to Siav? Could they work something out? _What can we work out? How can we possibly  make this work?_

He thrust the thought away.

“Hm.” Vladishka tilted her head slightly. “You dissolved one of Eteire’s spells. The fire,” she explained, seeing his confusion.

“I don’t know how I did that,” Xavier admitted, instantly cautious.

“You said you knew something of magic.” The blonde cocked her head. “What did you mean by that?”

“I’m a witch.” Xavier spread his hands. “A neopagan. Lots of us practise magic—not like yours, not this mana thing, but…” Should he be telling her this? He wasn’t sure.

Vladishka frowned, thoughtful. “I have always been told that humans had no power,” she said. “Perhaps this is not true.” She blinked. “And you disarmed one of my bodyguards. Few could have done that.”

Xavier shrugged. “My parents were in the IDF,” he answered, choosing his words carefully. “The Israeli military. I was born after they moved here to the UK, but they taught me Krav Maga until they died. Then the Marines and the SAS polished the edges.” It couldn’t hurt to drive home that not all humans were as useless as she and Eteire seemed to think.

Vladishka’s expression sharpened with interest. “I have never heard of Krav Maga.”

“It’s a kind of martial arts,” he said vaguely. He wasn’t about to give up a human advantage to vampires.

From her wry smile, she’d guessed the path of his thoughts, but she said nothing about it. “So, a most unusual specimen,” she mused. “But one without answers.” She cocked her head again, this time in the other direction. “May I see your necklace?”

Startled, Xavier glanced down at it. “If you think it will help.” He reached behind his neck to grasp the chain and lift it over his head. For a moment he hesitated, strangely reluctant to give it up even for a moment—would she give it back?—before telling himself that he was being ridiculous.

He held it out to her, his dog-tags clinking against the pendant’s gold wings.

The moment she touched it a blinding white flash erupted from between her fingers, and everything went dark.

*

When the afterimage faded from Xavier’s eyes, he climbed to his feet, drinking in his surroundings in stunned awe. The dragon charm was hanging suspended in mid-air at the centre of the darkened room, and from its ruby eyes was projected an immense, shimmering hologram, a perfect mirror of the Duranki web he’d seen in his mind when Vladishka told her story. Fist-sized planets hung like baubles in the air, hundreds of them shining like a rainbow of stars in the dark. Ropes of white fire connected each sphere to every other, and as Xavier stared he began to see a pattern to it, a design as regular and perfect as that of a spider’s web but infinitely more complicated, so much so that it hurt his head to contemplate it.

 _“Duranki,”_ Vladishka said softly somewhere to his right. She passed through a dozen of the threads to stand beside him. The light of the planets and the ropes lit her face like a steady candle flame.

“I guessed,” Xavier whispered. Vladishka reached out towards a planet covered in deep green and swathes of gold, curving her fingers so that she seemed to be touching it. “It looks just like… I imagined it just like this, when you told the tale.”

She gave him a bemused look. “You imagined nothing. I painted the picture for you.” Before he could respond, she returned her attention to the glittering mirage filling the room. “This is a map.”

“Why was it in my necklace?” He couldn’t stop staring. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t begin to work out how it existed. Was this magic, or some incredible technology hidden in his pendant?

“Siavahda must have left it here for us. Look.” She gestured. “This is Bhogavati,” she told Xavier, indicating the green planet closest to them. “Home of the nagini.” A peach-sized chunk of amber was “Arcadia.” “Sysarvinen” was an idyllic world of soft green and lapis blue. A smaller planet covered in forest was “Luparrin”. “Mordreth” was almost exclusively sapphire, with only a few tiny beads of jade, the very opposite of a desert-dominated “Azrath”, one of the largest planets within her reach.

The fire-and-desert planet drew him with an almost magnetic pull. His heart raced, but he resisted, the edge wearing off his awe and dissolving into wariness. Vladishka’s fingers passed through the glowing threads and the spheres without effect, but would his do the same? Was it safe to try?

His hand throbbed, but he ignored it. He walked forward, passing through a handful of smaller orbs until he was standing in front of Azrath. It was larger than almost all of the others close by, and now that he was closer he could make out details on its surface; clusters of settlements that might be cities, mountain ranges strung across the two huge continents like necklaces, and here and there were labels in some incomprehensible language.

Abruptly a tiny dragon flew across the planet’s surface, and without thinking Xavier reached out to touch.

Like a book slammed shut, the shining web collapsed inwards, spooled into Azrath like so much shining thread. But the room stayed dark, and Azrath remained, glowing like a small star as it lowered itself until it was level with Xavier’s face. Immediately it began to melt, spinning and blurring and stretching, shading itself with a ghostly palette until a human shape began to take form in front of him.

“Siav,” Vladishka gasped. She moved towards the figure unthinkingly, but it didn’t seem to register her. It stared only at Xavier, smiling.

Xavier stared back at Al’s face. His eyes were dry, but that was because shock had blocked his tear ducts; his hands were shaking so badly he shoved them into his pockets. It helped keep him from reaching out and grabbing at Al. Even knowing that the hologram was no more substantial than a breath didn’t erase the impulse, and gods—Xavier couldn’t have predicted his reaction to the sight of his lover’s face, the strength and storm of it; loss and anger and painful confusion, the low throb of unshed tears becoming a burn like a bullet wound at the sight of Al’s soft, endearing smile.

The mirage opened its mouth, and Xavier felt his heart lift in something that could have been expectation or hope—and felt it sink as the words that left Al’s lips were a meaningless babble, a nonsense tongue that meant nothing to him. Xavier kept his face inscrutable, but it was hard to keep control in the face of the softly hissed syllables. His heart fell lower and lower. Sibilant and snarling, the expression in Al’s eyes was tender, more unabashedly affectionate than Xavier had ever seen him—and yet for all that the apparition was focussing on him, Xavier was sure that the strange speech wasn’t addressed to him at all.

How could it be?

“Does that mean anything to you?” he asked Vladishka, trying to keep his voice level. “Because I have no idea what he’s saying.”

As if his words were a banishing, Al vanished, popping out like a soap-bubble, and Xavier tried to remember how to breathe as natural light flooded the room once more.

 )0(

_“Thank the gods you’re finally awake—I was so, so worried! Zysainae-Anosia, I wish I could hold you. I wish I was there with you. I’m so sorry, dearling. I didn’t mean to leave you alone. But Vladishka and Eteire are close by, and they’ll bring you to me when you explain. I’ll be in Amaris waiting for you. I love you. Come home. I love you.”_

“She said that she loved you,” Vladishka heard herself say, as if from a distance. Her mind dismantled what she knew, but no matter how she ordered them the pieces would not fit together. “And that we’re to take you to Amaris.”

Who _was_ this man, to make Siav forget Nakir? Who could accomplish such a thing? Nakir was Siav’s _nejika_ , the other half of her soul, the one she literally could not live without—except Vladishka was forced to admit that Siav _had_ , had survived Nakir’s loss eight years ago when all the laws of life, mana and _järkevyys_ said that she should have died.

Was it possible that she could have fallen in love again? With a _human?_

“Amaris? What is—wait, I thought you couldn’t leave Earth?”

“It’s the capital city of Kern-Rois.” Vladishka told him. “Another world. And we can leave. It will just be difficult.” More than difficult. Much more. Did Siav understand what she was asking, commanding, Vladishka to do? Did she understand the cost?

Didn’t she _care?_

The injunction settled on Vladishka’s shoulders heavily, with the weight of a world. “She is my Seeker,” she murmured, sickened. “I will obey.”

She only hoped that she could live with herself afterwards.

 )0(

“Your seeker?” Xavier echoed. “Is that—because she’s one of those, what did you call it? One of the—Mahorela Aoiveae?”

 _Are you going to take me to another world?_ He couldn’t shape the words. Could hardly think them. What did that—what could it—what did it even _mean?_

“Not just one of,” Vladishka corrected absently. She looked troubled by something, some private thought she made no move to share. “The first. The Seeker. Each of us have certain gifts, a particular purpose. Siav is meant to find and protect the other Mahorela Aoiveae. She Knows things.”

The cadence of her voice stopped Xavier cold.

Aleron had been perfect from day one. When they were kids together—when Al was fourteen and still called David—Xavier had fallen head over heels in love with him with the kind of heart-stopping intensity reserved only for teenagers. That they were both boys, that they came from different worlds (oh, how painfully true that cliché had proved itself now!), that David’s skin was the exact shade of the creamy freshwater pearls his mother wore while Xavier’s was the rich gold of his parents’ homeland—nothing seemed great enough to keep them apart.

But he’d been wrong. Xavier’s life had turned upside down and inside out, and David’s teary raving about other worlds and not fitting in his skin had been too much for a bereaved fifteen year old to handle. They had lost each other in their separate griefs.

Only to rediscover each other years later. A stroke of fate—an act of serendipity so fortunate that Xavier, hardened and less idealistic than his younger self, had been suspicious. But there was nothing, he’d thought at the time, to be wary of. David’s new name was the only thing that had changed. Aleron had been so perfect, so in sync with Xavier’s every wish and dream that Xavier had playfully accused him of reading his mind.

And Al had laughed. _“I’m not reading your mind,_ ” he’d grinned. _“I just know what you’re thinking.”_

It had become a catchphrase, one of those prescribed responses that lovers share. _I just know what you’re thinking_.

 _She Knows things_.

Xavier suddenly felt as though the air was gone from the room. _Did he—did_ she _—use her powers to make me love her?_

  _Don’t be ridiculous_ , he told himself fiercely. Instantly. But with growing dread, he could imagine it. If you knew things about another person, couldn’t you make them love you? Mimic those things they most wanted and make yourself the perfect lover?

_No. You’re being paranoid._

_Who’s insane now?_

“And he’s not dead,” Xavier said quietly. That was the deal-breaker. Just because Al had mentioned a lot of this years ago didn’t mean any of it was real. He still couldn’t imagine Al as a woman, not really. It was like trying to envision dry water, or cold fire. It was just _not_.

But if Al was alive, then Xavier would go wherever they wanted him to go.

“She’s not dead,” Vladishka agreed quietly. “I promise.”

 _But can I trust you?_ They weren’t human. They spoke a language he knew, but that didn’t make them like him. This thing, this ability to incarnate in a human body—he remembered the story of a female spy who had blown her cover when she swore in her first language, one her cover-persona shouldn’t have known. From the sound of it an incarnated person wouldn’t do that. How deadly would an army of them be? How could you identify them? They wouldn’t need false papers, wouldn’t depend on a network of contacts to back up their false histories; they would already have real passports, real histories. Their ‘covers’ would be impenetrable.

It chilled him to think about it. How easy would it be for these people to take over, if they wanted to?

How could he trust them?

There was something she wasn’t saying. Something she was hiding. In fact, there was almost certainly a lot she was hiding. And a glint of steel in her jaw suggested it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to push her. “And you want me to go with you into a world full of...people like you.” Krav Maga might have given him an advantage with Aveyar, but only because the man hadn’t been expecting a fight. And Aveyar hadn’t used mana—a power clearly different from the one Xavier knew and practised. What kind of guarantee did Xavier have that he’d be safe there?

Or that he’d be able to come back?

“She asked for you,” the obiri said quietly, like she knew how much that meant. “She said she loved you.”

She couldn’t have inflicted more pain if she’d reached into his chest and torn his heart out. _What does it matter if you don’t come back? What are you really going to miss?_ No. He wasn’t thinking logically. Emotional override. It was the blood on the bathroom floor, blinding him to reality.

And yet. _It’s Al. **Al**. _ His psyche trembled with the intensity of his longing, as desperate as a junkie for a fix. There _were_ other holds on him, threads of responsibility and duty that wove into ropes of obligation—the plane ticket that would send him back to Honduras in two weeks, the rent on the apartment, names and faces of friends, superiors, the other men in his unit—but none of them compared to the steel chain whose every link was Al’s name. Xavier needed his lover in his arms, needed to banish the memory of cool sticky dead blood with living warmth, had to replace the nightmare of Al’s face as inanimate as a wax mask with the smile that made the sun come out. He needed to hear Aleron’s laugh, needed it to drown out the silence of that bloodstained bathroom humming in his head like white noise. There was no _maybe_ , not really, no possibility of any other option; nothing else mattered, nothing else _could_ matter, not with this fear-stained craving wracking his heart and mind, just barely kept under control.

“Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.” Even if Al was a woman, even if he was this Siavahda person—it was still _him_. Xavier _had_ to see him, had to make sure that he was all right, alive and breathing and laughing that laugh. “I know what I want.”

A flash of pain passed over Vladishka’s face, there and gone. “I don’t think you do,” she whispered.

“I’m not a child!” Xavier shouted. His sudden outburst took both of them by surprise. “I’m not jumping in making assumptions. I don’t know what’ll happen! I don’t know the first damn thing about any of this! But I need—I _need_ to—” He jerked his head to the side and squeezed his hand into a fist, ruthlessly slamming down the control as his vision blurred with tears he refused to shed. But it was a close thing, so close; love and pain choked him, a pulsing knot in his throat that he somehow managed to swallow down.

“I need to make sure he—she’s ok,” he said finally, his voice rough with razor-sharp grief and determination. “That’s all that matters. I can’t—I found Al’s body. If there’s anything, _anything_ , that can make what I saw not real...” He stopped and breathed deeply. “Then I need to do it.”

He waited for her judgement, trying to ignore the humiliation caused by baring his emotions so blatantly. It had been a long, long time since he was so open with anyone but Aleron, and the fact that Vladishka was a stranger made the embarrassment burn all the hotter. To distract himself he watched her, anticipation and dread and hope all warring inside his chest in preparation for her answer.

She stared at him so expressionlessly that Xavier felt goosebumps break out on his arms, unnerved by the blank mask of her face. Her eyes, though, belied her vacant expression; they cut like lasers, cut so deep that he couldn’t imagine what she was looking for in him—or what she found.

Whatever it was, it must have been enough; animation returned to her face as if some internal switch had been flipped back on. “Fine,” she said quietly. “Go home. Pack as if you won’t be coming back.” _You might not be_ went unsaid. She stood up, and even though she was still a good foot shorter than him, she looked regal. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Xavier nodded slowly, relief and a new tension bleeding through him. “How will I find you for tomorrow?”

Vladishka looked at him, and then smiled. He didn’t flinch when the expression revealed those sharp, pearly fangs. But her gaze was resigned, and that chilled him. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll find you.”

 


	5. Homecoming

_“Home is not where you live: it’s where they understand you.”—Christian Morganstern_

 

“Any change?” Lorellor asked, closing the door quietly behind lim.

Kasch looked up from her note-taking, and at the sight of her teacher once again sent a silent prayer of thanks to Ronoc and Illianor for helping her win this placement. Lorellor was nearly a century younger than her, _and_ foreign—but le was the best healer anyone had ever heard of in the last four generations. And, although she’d been prepared for lim to be earth-shakingly arrogant, le was also one of the kindest and most humble people she had met in her two hundred and sixty-eight years. “No, seir,” she answered. “The power feed is constant. The AnKi-ja-morë’s stasis remains fixed.” Le lit the room just by walking into it, the sheer _goodness_ streaming out of lim like light, a soft, calming radiance.

Lorellor shook lir head in approval, crossing the room and kneeling to wash lir dark hands at the stream running through the floor. The crystal-clear water burbled quietly over smooth pebbles, a counterpoint to the silver windchimes at each of the room’s circular windows. Twilight filtered through the stained glass to scatter fragments of jewel-coloured light over the white walls and the simple cot that was the chamber’s focus.

Rather, Kasch thought, it was the Mahoroive on the bed who was the heart of the room. Beneath the stasis-sphere hex that shimmered like a mirage, AnKi-ja-morë Siavahda Guinevere Riona Kalyia Iesadora Deja-rae Corchelle could have been dead: her two hearts didn’t beat and her lungs were frozen mid-breath. Apprentice healers like Kasch regularly dismantled the sphere to turn her body over; while the spells involved prevented her body from atrophying, her blood would pool in her veins if left to settle. Breaching the sphere every few hours also ensured that her body aged, albeit at a far slower rate than it would had the AnKi-ja-morë actually been living in it. Physically, only a fraction of the last few decades had made their mark on the AnKi-ja-morë’s body.

Lorellor straightened, drying lir hands on a cloth. The silver-embroidered white tunic of a full healer was perfectly clean, stark as snow against lir ebony skin. The delicate chain around lir neck was hung with tiny pendants, silver charms in the shape of molecular structures; dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. “You can retire, Kasch,” le told lir apprentice in flawless arkadian, with only a faint trace of lir alfarn accent. “I shouldn’t need you again today.” Le smiled, the expression as sweet as that of a unicorn foal. “Take the evening off.”

Kasch fisted her right hand and tapped it against her heart before unfolding her fingers and holding the hand out towards her teacher in the arkadian gesture of respect. “Thank you, seir. I’ll see you in the morning,” she added as she gathered up her notebooks and kit.

But Lorellor had forgotten her. Frowning, the liosalfa spread lir fingers over the surface of a sapphire, lir eyes glazing over as le accessed the libraries of information contained within its crystalline matrix. Fixed on a marble pedestal against the wall, the gemstone was larger than Kasch’s head and one of the seven ‘batteries’ fuelling the AnKi-ja-morë’s stasis-sphere, monitoring her well-being and the intricacies of the hexes protecting her. Kasch had checked it just a moment ago, but she felt dread pooling in her stomach at the growing alarm on her master’s face.

“She—” Lorellor began. It was all le had time for. Before le could say another word alarm-wards all over the pyramid began screaming—loud, howling shrieks that pierced Kasch’s head like the war-cries of harpies—and Kasch barely had time to clap her hands over her ears before the body on the bed shot upright with a gasp, breaking through the thousands of curses and hexes woven around her as if they were paper.

Kasch gaped, unable to believe what she was seeing. Luckily Lorellor was, if just as surprised, more adept at accommodating it. While lir apprentice gawked the liosalfa regained lir calm and began dismantling the wards with practised, unruffled motions. “You are not meant to appear without warning, my lady Mahoroive,” le scolded lightly. Somehow lir voice carried over the alarms. “You gave my apprentice quite a shock.”

Siavahda stared down at her arms without responding. Kasch did not have much experience with draconians and could not decipher the expression on her scaled face, but she hoped that the blessed Mahoroive was pleased with her body’s condition. Kasch and the other apprentices had carefully oiled her scales just yesterday.

The sirens stopped. At once, all three of them could hear the banging at the door. “Open in the name of the Emperor!”

Kasch glanced worriedly to her master, but Lorellor merely frowned thoughtfully. “Could you perhaps see to the Tiamat’s guards, Kasch?” le asked idly. “I would like to look over the AnKi-ja-morë before subjecting her to any more stress.”

Nodding numbly, Kasch moved over to the door. The wards around the AnKi-ja-morë might have been taken down, but the room had responded to the alarm nonetheless and gone into lockdown; the door could only be opened from the inside. Hesitantly, Kasch placed her left hand on the quartz pad beside the door.

The door retracted with a soft hiss, and instantly she was aware of how very large these particular guards were: all eight of the men and women were over six feet, making Kasch feel particularly small. But the knowledge that she was protecting her patient gave her strength, and she defiantly shifted herself a few inches taller.

“What happened?” Aivorn Enandir-al demanded angrily. The only non-arkadian in the group, the mana-infused tattoos around his eyes were glowing bright silver against his black skin, an indication of his upset. “Is Siavahda—”

“Why not let the healer tell us, Aivorn, instead of pummelling her for information?” Siduro Farien said calmly, laying a hand on Aivorn’s arm before turning to Kasch. “Lady?”

Kasch bowed and addressed Farien’s more familiar face. He, at least, was a respectful arkadian male, if hardly a respect _able_ one. “Siduro, the AnKi-ja-morë returned to her body unexpectedly. Lorellor is checking her over as we speak.”

“She’s here?” Aivorn’s argent eyes flicked past Kasch in an attempt to see into the room; the apprentice healer half-closed the door a little pointedly. “I want to see her.”

“Healer Lorellor requested a few moments of privacy,” Kasch said firmly. “Undue stress will not be good for her until she is settled. The way was not open for her; forcing her way through the protective curses could have been traumatic.”

“Listen to the healer.” Farien spoke idly, but only a true fool could have mistaken it for a suggestion. He dipped his head in Kasch’s direction. “I will inform the Emperor of his daughter’s return.” His silver-flecked blue eyes glittered with very real delight. “Please tell Siav that we can’t wait to see her.”

The Siduro and the AnKi-ja-morë had been friends since childhood, Kasch remembered. “I will,” she promised.

“Thank you.” Farien bowed his head again. His hair was dappled like the plumage of a snowy owl, shadowed in silver and white and black. “Aivorn, I’m serious. With me.”

Aivorn snarled something in a language Kasch didn’t know—most likely kerné, since that had to be Aivorn’s first tongue—but followed as Farien led them away.

Relieved, Kasch closed the door and turned back to the room. Only then did it dawn on her that she had denied access to the _arkadian Siduro_.

She leaned back against the door, feeling slightly faint. The commander of all the arkadian armies, and a nobody apprentice healer had banished him like a tutor dismissing a churlish pupil. And as if that wasn’t enough! Aivorn Enandir-al! Kasch groaned quietly and hid her face in her hands. She was dead. Aivorn would kill her. He and his twin sister were two of the youngest war-princes in history for a _reason_ , dammit!

“Is your apprentice well, ’lor?”

Kasch looked up, and her dark gold skin darkened further with embarrassment as she accidentally met the eyes of a very amused AnKi-ja-morë.

“Blessed lady Mahoroive,” Kasch stammered, dropping to her knees and bowing her head. “I—I—”

Siavahda—daughter of Zysainae-Irkalla and first among the Mahorela Aoiveae—blinked slowly, like a cat. “You may stand,” she said kindly. “Please. I would have you be comfortable.”

Kasch glanced at her master uncertainly.

Lorellor’s tranquil smile was touched with amusement. “Please rise, Kasch,” le said serenely. “I am quite sure that the floor has already been cleaned today. There is no need for you to sacrifice your _skalan_ for such a fruitless endeavour.”

“Ah. Yes. Thank you.” A half-inch shorter with embarrassment, Kasch quickly rose to her feet and brushed off the knees of her _skalan_ , though the blue pantaloons hardly needed it. “I. How may I be of service, blessed one?” She didn’t quite look the AnKi-ja-morë in the eye. The blessed lady’s draconian form was much more intimidating when she was actually _in it_.

The AnKi-ja-morë might have smiled. It was difficult to tell: there was a flash of bone-shard fangs, but that could have meant anything. “No,” she said gently. “If it’s well with your master, I think I’ll survive without your expertise today.”

Lorellor laughed outright at Kasch’s appealing look. “Go, go,” le said, waving lir hand and trying to suppress lir laughter. “I will call if I need you.”

Grateful, Kasch gathered up her books once more. “Siduro Farien wishes you well,” she said quickly, remembering her promise to pass the message on—and then she fled the political mine-field that had once been a lovely calm sickroom.

 )0(

The moment Kasch was gone, Siavahda’s amusement fled, and Lorellor was quietly grateful that she had done so much to try and put the apprentice at ease.

“You really should drink that,” le commented idly, moving back to the power-stones to finish dismantling the wards.

Siav’s eyes dropped back to the bowl as if she had forgotten she was holding it. Without a word, she lifted it to her lips. The bowl had a pointed side for pouring, which she deftly used around her razor-sharp teeth.

“Do you think you could shift?” le asked her. “You would find it easier.”

Her long tongue—a forked red ribbon—chased the last few drops before she placed the bowl carefully in her lap, clumsy with her claws. “In a minute.” She glanced up at lim. The soft, anemone-like tendrils on her head—the draconian equivalent of hair—waved and curled before settling against her skull and neck. “Could we speak draconian? Arkadian is difficult with real teeth.”

“Please.”

A flicker of a grateful smile, but then it was gone and her next words were hissed out like a threat. “You should know that this isn’t a quick trip. I won’t be returning to Earth.”

“What? Why?” Lorellor sat down on the cot, lir statuesque features concerned. “Has something gone wrong with the body?” Le had been the one to build it; others had screened the thousands of human couples who had been entirely unaware of the honour being done them, but it had been Lorellor who edited and re-coded the genetic material of the chosen couple’s fetus, once the female had become pregnant, according to Siavahda’s exacting specifications. Le had been the one to braid in a thin sliver of the AnKi-ja-morë’s own DNA into the fetus, to make it easier for the mages to anchor Siavahda’s soul to it. Le had ensured that the human carrier had not misread the foreign genetic material as a flaw and terminated the pregnancy, which would have meant starting over from the beginning. It had been the most complex project of lir life, but it had been a masterpiece. How could something have gone wrong?

For a moment, she didn’t reply. “No,” she said at last. “It wasn’t the body.” She smiled. “It was flawless, Lorellor. But I...” She shook her head and pushed back the blanket with a sweep of a gold-scrolled wing. “I don’t have time to explain it now, I’m afraid. I should go reassure everyone—did I hear Aivorn at the door? He’s probably fretting himself sick.”

“At least let me help you up,” Lorellor insisted, crossing to the other side of the bed and proffering lir arm. In the time it took lim to stand, she shifted. The gold-and-crimson armour of her scales dissolved into silken dusky skin; the ruby-red slits of her pupils rounded out and darkened while the irises around them were sprinkled with tiny silver flecks that glittered like stars against a grass-green and chocolate ground. Claws retracted as her fingers grew an extra joint and lengthened; the red-gold-green-blue tendrils on her head melted into shoulder-length black tresses and her wings deliquesced like hot wax into her back. The bones in her face were suddenly malleable as clay, softening and reforming beneath the skin while her ears slid down the sides of her skull. In a painless, effortless act of metamorphosis Siavahda-Guinevere became Siavahda-Riona, rising from the bed an arkadian.

“No matter how many times I am privileged enough to watch, your shifts always remain fascinating,” the healer commented, hovering closely in case lir patient suddenly became dizzy. “I spent a few years studying arkadian shifters to try and understand it, but what you do is not at all the same, is it?” Le continued on without waiting for an answer, lir voice brimming with enthusiasm for a well-loved subject. “Arkadians use energy to fuel biological changes, untying and reforming their DNA at will to become whatever they wish. True shapeshifters. But you... You don’t change your body, you _exchange_ it. Wounds in one skin don’t even transfer to the others!”

“That _is_ the difference between being a shapeshifter and a skinchanger,” Siavahda agreed. Her tone was cool, but Lorellor didn’t notice.

“And the rarity! Chimeras like your father are much more common than skinwalkers. Did you know that you are one of only three other skinwalkers alive at this very moment?”

“Yes,” she interrupted before le could go on, “and when I was at the scholal, there were eight. Four of them killed themselves, and one was executed for murder. But that is the other _significant difference_ between chimeras and skinwalkers, isn’t it, Lorellor? Skinwalkers are ticking timebombs, if you’ll pardon the human expression.” She removed her arm from the healer’s. “Excuse me. I think I can manage myself well enough from here.”

She walked away down the hall like an AnKi.

 )0(

“All we were told is that your daughter has returned,” Farien said for the eighth time, forcing his eyes not to roll. “Seir,” he added, ducking his head submissively under the Emperor’s displeasure.

“Then where is she?” Alumit demanded. The Tiamat’s gold-speckled green eyes—the only visible sign of his arkadian ancestry—were hot and angry, and Farien kept his mouth shut tight as his Tiamat furiously paced the confines of the private study. The gold and platinum insets on Alumit’s crimson scales, pictographs detailing the Tiamat’s life and exploits, flashed like fire as they caught the light, but it was his wings Farien kept a wary eye on; at thirty-eight _lec_ wide from tip to tip, the Tiamat’s wings dominated the room, two glorious banners of bone and muscle and thick membrane. A single strike from those wings could cave in a woman’s ribcage like spun sugar, and armour would part like paper for the vicious claws at the knuckle joints and wing-tips. When the Tiamat made a particularly savage turn on his heel, Farien had to step back hurriedly to avoid being cut by a claw that gleamed like a knife. “She should have come straight to me—”

“I thought it would be best to dress properly, first,” a familiar voice said from the door. “Unless you would have preferred my formal arrival in a patient’s gown?”

Farien forced himself not to whirl around but to turn slowly. It didn’t change the sight waiting for him. “Siav!”

She smiled. “Farien.” Her expression turned formal as she turned towards the Emperor. “Father.” She dipped her head in a shallow bow, more an acknowledgement than a full supplication, causing her headdress—the traditional _kor_ worn by arkadian nobility—to tinkle merrily as the hundreds of golden discs sewn to its surface shifted and sang. The triangle of stiffened violet and emerald silk was two _lece_ tall and bent gracefully backwards over Siavahda’s hair, like a curved wing. The dress-like tunic brushing her thigh was embroidered in the same colours and hemmed with the same gold discs as the _kor_. Each of the tiny coins were stamped with a symbol of one of the gods, sigils that lined the outer seams of the AnKi-ja-morë’s bottle-green _skalan_. Unlike those worn by arkadian men or _oset_ , the female _skalan_ incorporated a train of richly embroidered cloth that dragged behind the wearer for a good four feet. Farien happened to know it was murder to get clean after a day in the city, but thankfully laundry was not his problem. “Am I presentable?”

Alumit waved his hand. “You’ll do,” he said brusquely, and Farien hid a frown. His daughter had clearly put a great deal of effort into her clothes—she could have been dressed for court—and it was both discourteous and slightly cruel to dismiss it without acknowledgement. “I’m more interested in why you decided to leave Earth without giving me warning.”

Siav’s face turned even colder. “I had no way to send such a warning,” she said formally, switching to the dialect of the royal court. “The null surrounding Earth has become impermeable. We were completely cut off without any way to communicate.”

Her calm announcement left the two men floundering. Farien recovered more quickly. “What about Vladishka’s honour guard? Couldn’t they have used the Dracula’s portal to send messages?”

She shook her head. The amber beads at the ends of her braids clicked like river stones. “The portal closed when the null became all-encompassing. As did all the others we knew about,” she added before either of them could ask.

“Then I must ask: how is it you are here?” Draconians had no body-hair in their armoured _dakro_ forms, but the ribbon of gold scales above the Emperor’s eyes rose a fraction just like eyebrows. “I was under the impression that you needed the, how did you put it? The gaps in the null’s weaving to travel back and forth.”

She smiled. Even without the otherworldly glow of her danaan eyes, threatening hrimthur tattoos or, Edonmor forbid, her draconian fangs, it was not a pleasant expression. “Correct. But I am not ‘travelling back and forth’. This is a one-way trip. The human host-form created for me has been disposed of. I will not be going back.” She paused. “My lord Tiamat.”

Farien kept his face inscrutable, giving no sign of his relief. Alumit did not seem to share it; the Emperor’s powerful tail swept back and forth as if he would have liked to knock someone off their feet. “And will your companions be similarly returning?” he forced through his teeth. The ivory fangs had a green sheen when they caught the light—venom.

Siavahda lifted one shoulder, then let it fall. “I expect so.”

“When.”

“Hopefully sometime soon.” Accustomed to interrogating spies, Farien caught the slight narrowing of her eyes—and the flash of white in her pupils, like the reflection of a falling star, there and gone. “Why?” she asked softly. “Are you worried Vladishka will be unhappy with her welcome?”

“I could not care less what that mana-leeching _krezn_ thinks,” Alumit spat, his wings flaring with a leathery _snap_ , blocking out the light. “You, on the other hand, will not speak to me this way!”

The AnKi-ja-morë lifted her chin, a smile teasing the corner of her dark lips. “You mean a goddess cannot talk to a mortal however she likes?” she asked as if she were genuinely curious. Farien might have believed it, if not for that half-smile and the glitter behind her eyes.

Alumit sneered. “Unlike some of us, I have actual work to do,” he declared, making to leave the room. When he was at her shoulder, though, he stopped and turned his head to face hers. His daughter didn’t so much as twitch. “I hope you realise how much work and effort went into procuring you and your friends your safe haven,” he said, in words as soft and cold as the killing snow. “And how much you have wasted on a whim.” 

Siavahda stared at the opposite wall without blinking as the Emperor swept from the room, his huge wings trailing him like a cloak.

As soon as the door closed Farien swept her into his arms, new muscle spinning itself over his bones in an attempt to provide an illusion of security. He didn’t say a word, knowing from long experience that nothing soothed the blistering burn of venomous words from someone who was supposed to love you. Instead he waited until the marble stiffness leached from her body and she made a half-hearted attempt to return the hug.

“Who knows I’m here?” she asked after a moment, gently disentangling herself from him.

He let her go. “Aside from your father and the healers who attended you? Me, Sarakei’s guard, and Aivorn.”

There was no visible reaction to Aivorn’s name. “Will Aivorn have told anyone else?” she asked, knowing there was no need to speculate on the guard’s loyalty. Every arkadian sworn to the royal sword would walk through fire and ice for Farien, and carve their own hearts out of their chests before spilling one of his secrets.

Farien shrugged. “Besides his sister and Enandir? I doubt it.”

“Good. Because I’m not staying; I’m leaving for Amaris within the hour.” She looked away, pensive. “If you have a spare minute, could you find Rek? I’d like to see zém.”

The Siduro grinned. “Maybe I should be protecting zém instead of leading zém to slaughter. Are you going to be zéiz bossy royal cousin or zéiz maddening adopted sister if I find zém for you?”

She grinned back innocently. “Which one will get you to find zém faster?” she asked sweetly.

He laughed. “I’ll let you know when I figure out which is less dangerous.” He kissed her cheek and gave a sweeping bow as he held the door open for her. “I’ll link you when I find zém,” he assured her. “And, Siav? I’m glad you’re back where you belong.”

She smiled. “So am I.”

But when he turned away, her eyes were white. 


	6. Leaving It All Behind (Part One)

_“Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides.”—Antonio Porchia_

 

With no memory of the journey from the park to Eteire’s apartment, it took Xavier over an hour to get home. On another day, he would have chafed at every moment, but tonight the storm raging in the sky was only a shadow of the one beneath his skin. He felt as though each thought must burn like lightning, so that the people he passed on the street must be blind not to see the light of them blazing through his pores, or from behind his eyes.

Aleron. Siavahda. Mana, obiri, his necklace, other worlds and races and peoples, myths as true, factual history.

Aleron as a woman.

Aleron as a liar.

Aleron alive.

At some point, he found himself paused outside a little café, still open despite the hour. Standing in the middle of the pavement, he stared at the glass window and the warm interior. Night had fallen sometime during the shattering of his worldview, and the light from the little café spilled like golden honey into the street, but what entranced Xavier was the idea—abstract until now—that if it was all true, this might be the last time he would ever see it.

The café. The gleam of fluorescent lighting. Even the human patrons inside; after tomorrow, would he ever see their like again? Vladishka hadn’t explicitly said there were no humans where they were going, but it seemed unlikely.

He continued on more slowly, momentarily reluctant to leave the simple sight. And yet he didn’t consider changing his mind even for a moment. Doing so was just as impossible as it had been with Vladishka standing in front of him, urging him to see reason. But she hadn’t understood. Aleron _was_ Xavier’s reason, his reason for everything. It was childish and foolish and he of all people should know the risks of letting someone so deep inside, but that hadn’t stopped it from happening. 

When he stood outside his apartment, he had to brace himself before turning the key in the lock.

Once inside, he closed the door behind him carefully and stood in the darkness, the keys clenched tightly in his fist. It was impossible not to remember the last time he’d stood here. Then, too, the silence had been all-encompassing.

He remembered that silence. It had been a long flight and a longer six months, but climbing the stairs to their flat yesterday Xavier had been suffused with a new energy, an eagerness to have Al in his arms again. The amazing, beautiful man who had become Xavier’s sanctuary over the years, a reminder that the world wasn’t all blood and sand, the bright charm at the back of his mind whenever his unit delved past the safe zones, keeping him safe and sane. Al had clawed his way through Xavier’s steel-wall defences, and Xavier would have fought to the death to keep him.

Would have done anything to keep him safe and happy.

But he’d failed, more extravagantly than anyone could ever have imagined. The silence of the apartment had been an accusation, one that Xavier hadn’t been able to understand until he found the body stark and unmistakable as a guilty verdict on the bloodstained floor.

Carefully, moving as if he might break, Xavier dropped the keys in the clay bowl on the hall table. It was lumpy and cracked and painted a terrible shade of green, and Xavier had been embarrassed when, after the art class Al had dragged him to, Aleron had insisted on giving it pride of place on their mantelpiece. Xavier had eventually moved it here, and the two of them had gotten into the habit of emptying their pockets into it whenever they came in.

There was death in the field. There were guns and grenades and sometimes the civilians revolted against their supposed allies. Xavier had seen his friends die, had felt Death’s cool dark coat brush against him in passing.

But not that. Never like that. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. On the occasions that Xavier had considered some version of this scenario, it featured different characters with another script: someone from his unit, maybe Leo or Chris, coming to Al’s door to break the news that Xavier wasn’t coming home again.

Not _this_.

Xavier raised his hand to make the motion that would have told the TechBand on his wrist to turn on the lights, but he stopped. He didn’t want to see the photographs on the walls, and he walked through the familiar surroundings in the dark instead.

There had been no comforting shield of denial when he found Al on the bathroom floor. Xavier had seen too many bodies not to know, instantly, that his lover was gone. Gone and not coming back.

He had not touched the body. It was no more Aleron than a cast-off shirt was, with just as much value. Slowly and carefully, as if he were made of cracking glass, Xavier had called the police. When they had arrived, he answered their questions quietly, with a semblance of calm. They took his details. Someone went through the bathroom, snapping pictures and taking evidence. He was given two cards, one for the detective who would handle the case and another for a grief counselling service.

He’d spent the last few nights at the cheapest boarding house he could find, unwilling—unable—to face what had been his and Al’s home. Unable to process the agony, the tragedy of what had happened within these so-familiar walls.

The same all-consuming pain threatened to overwhelm him again as Xavier stopped outside their bedroom door. He put his hand on the door handle, slowly curving his fingers around the cool metal like a blind man reading Braille. The last time he had entered this room, he hadn’t yet known that life as he knew it was over.

He pushed the door open.

Xavier had spent most of the last few years abroad, and it showed. Like most people of his generation, he read e-books from his tablet, but Al’s old-fashioned paperback books lined the shelves of the room he’d had almost entirely to himself for years now, spilling over to be stacked in corners and beside the bed. Aleron’s Solbook, one of the first solar-powered laptops, lay on top of the chest of drawers like a white cat; Xavier remembered Al talking about upgrading it to a Helios in one of their last video calls, and his stomach twisted. The Solbook held court amongst half-filled notebooks, a camera, some odd socks and a handful of semi-precious stones. The sight of a dozen candles and a jar full of pens brought back with sharp intensity the memory of candlelight on the naked skin of Al’s back, with Xavier carefully writing the words and symbols Al dictated over every inch of Aleron he could reach. It was just one of a thousand memories mixing love and magic and the glitter of the unique that was Al’s signature.

The memory ached, but not as badly as Xavier had expected. It was beautiful and bittersweet, but Vladishka and Eteire had dulled the edge of his grief. Dulled it, but not taken it away: deep down, despite everything he’d seen today, there was a dark, crippling fear that it was all a ruse. How could there not be? It was too much of a risk to pin all of his hopes on strangers—to do so, only to discover that it wasn’t true... It was safer, better, to hold a few doubts close to his chest.

But even with those the pain was tolerable. He felt as though his insides were one big bruise, and his mind flinched away from thinking about the bathroom and what had happened there—but it was bearable. The lack of pain made him confident, and he grabbed a duffel bag from the wardrobe, setting it on the middle of the bed with a will.

All right. He could do this. After the emotional maelstrom of the last few days it was a relief to take a step back and simply consider a practical matter, as beautifully clear-cut as a math problem. He knew nothing about where they were going: therefore he would have to prepare for every possibility. Clothes—warm jumpers, gloves, and thick socks for the cold, with a couple of reusable chemical hand-warmers thrown in; cotton trousers, jeans and t-shirts for the heat, along with sun-cream and shades; cargo pants and leggings for exercise alongside combat boots and a more casual pair of sneakers. A six-inch KnitKit, a portable 3D printer for mending clothes and shoes, so he could repair any wear and tear as it happened; a Skinlight, military-standard, the torch powered by body heat; and a portable LifeSaver, also military-standard, a combination diagnostics scanner and 3D printer for medical drugs and bandages. An electric toothbrush and razor and their solar-powered chargers. His Peach CORE, a combination phone/tablet which could be folded down as small as a woman’s make-up compact or unfolded to the size of a small laptop, and functioned equally well at either size or any in-between. An old 80 gig iPod from the early 00s he’d won on Ebay; they didn’t make them like that anymore.

He packed with the neat care the military had instilled in him. It left the bag 3 _/_ 4s full.

From there Xavier went to his other bag, the one he had dropped in the sitting room when he arrived yesterday. The field kit from his army service contained everything from a first aid kit to a compass, and he made sure to pack it. But his target was not the kit. From the bottom of the suitcase he drew a sheathed knife with a distinctive foil grip that fit easily into his hand, one as familiar to him as Aleron’s face. At seven inches long, the Fairbairn–Sykes Fighting Knife was army issue, double edged and utterly deadly. Xavier had lived and breathed side by side the blade for years, and he wasn’t leaving his planet without it.

He set it on the bed, and stopped. Only then did he realise that he was panting, and that the room was dark. He had never switched on the lights.

Impulsively, he hunted down a pack of matches from the kitchen and moved around the apartment, lighting candles. Al had a great love for candles, and there were hundreds of all shapes, sizes and colours scattered around the place. The fireplace in the sitting room, though blocked off, was filled with almost a dozen candles of different hues; Xavier knelt and lit every one of them. The bedroom became another place, the normalcy of a simple apartment chased away by the flickering glow of firelight; it could have been the stage for a romantic seduction or something far more otherworldly.

Responding to the atmosphere, Xavier left the bag and crossed to the furthest corner of the room. He knelt down on the carpet in front of the small but beautiful altar he and Aleron had kept together. Al had gathered or bought new flowers not long ago, weaving tiny chains of ivy and lavender around the brass bowl half-full of water, the candlestick in the shape of a blue and green Chinese dragon, the large seed of an Australian tree, and the copper incense burner. At the centre sat a small statuette of Gaia. She had been a compromise. Al believed in a supreme Goddess figure, an omnipotent but benevolent higher being—the ‘divine female’, as the kids were calling it these days. Xavier didn’t buy it. To him, the entire universe was alive, a higher power all of its own, sentient in the way a tree was sentient. Beautiful, but not good or evil. It was beyond those concepts. And with her flowing green hair and her hands lovingly cupping the painted planet that was her stomach, the little statue had managed to mesh those two contradictory ideas together.

Silently, Xavier picked up the figurine, cradling it in his hands like a baby bird. He carried it to the bed, where he wrapped it in a pair of socks and packed it carefully away in the bag.


	7. Interlude the First

All over the world that night, shadowy figures with crimson eyes slipped into museums and private collections without triggering the most sensitive of alarms. Insomniac watchdogs slumbered, state of the art computers failed, safes that had cost the net worth of a small country opened like flowers to the sun. In the morning there were no fingerprints, no broken glass, no speck of dust out of place.

Except that hundreds of mysterious treasures were gone.

The voynich manuscript, a fifteenth century book written in an alphabet and language not known to any scholar on Earth, a book whose illustrations depicted herbs and other plants that had never grown on that planet.

Roman dodecahedras, twelve-sided bronze objects whose use historians had never been able to decipher.

The phaistos disc, a clay circle whose surface was covered in a spiral pattern of unknown hieroglyph-like symbols.

The Piri Reis map showing the coastline of Antarctica, with detail that hadn’t been visible since 4000 B.C.—drawn in 1513, 300 years before the continent was discovered.

The black stone housed in the Ka’ba at Mecca, around which an entire religion had been built.

These and hundreds of other ancient objects disappeared, taken by figures who were no more than ghostly blurs on the few surveillance cameras that caught sight of them at all. And though the police would never find them, each was wrapped with reverent, loving care and taken to one of ten safehouses.

And there they waited for the morning.


	8. Leaving It All Behind (Part Two)

_“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” – Neil Gaiman_

 

With no idea what time he would be picked up (or ‘found’, whatever that meant) Xavier had set his alarm for five am. He woke from restless, shapeless dreams, his hand clutching the hilt of his knife under his pillow. Sitting up dislodged one of Aleron’s old books, a thick hardback that had hovered precariously on the edge of the bed all night. It fell to the carpet with a thump.

Xavier picked it up and placed it beside his bag before getting dressed. Every movement as he selected shirt and jeans was smooth and economical, a study in silence in front of the mirror. He watched the sun rise over the shoulder of his reflection, wondering why he felt no regret or loss at the thought that he might never see this dawn again. Perhaps he’d become too practised at this kind of uncertainty on tour—where it was never fully safe and any breath might be your last—to be as afraid as he should be now.

_And it’s for Al. Al_ _. _

He shrugged into his vintage leather jacket. Now that most people got their protein from vat-grown algae products and processed insect meat, leather was an expensive rarity, but Xavier’s coat was invaluable not because of its impermeability to the British weather but for how it hid his weapons. Leather tabs attached to his knife sheath were meant to be sewn to clothes, making it accessible and easy to hide, and it worked like a charm; the moment Xavier slid his Fairbairn–Sykes into place and smoothed down the jacket, the blade was invisible. His guns similarly vanished into their holsters beneath the coat, and a smaller ‘boot knife’ slid into the sheath hidden in his right boot.

Afraid or not, he would not go into the unknown unarmed.

When the knock at the door came, Xavier was sitting at the kitchen table, demolishing a stack of vegan pancakes and using the hand not smeared with syrup to turn the pages of Al’s book. His bag was waiting next to the hall table. The book had turned out to be an encyclopaedia of magical creatures, places and peoples, a dictionary of mythology, but what made it interesting were the corrections inked onto the yellowed pages in the blue ink of a ballpoint.

Leaving the entry on _Abaia_ (a giant eel which, according to Al’s amendments, was a kind of elemental), Xavier got up to answer the door.

And almost slammed it in his visitor’s face.

“I’d shake your hand, but I’m all sticky just now,” he said with effort, turning back to the kitchen. “Are we leaving right this second, or do I have time to finish?”

“I’m sorry, did I interrupt your morning jerk-off?” Eteire asked sweetly as she stepped over the threshold. The antagonism drained away as the smell of the pancakes wove its spell around her. “...We might have a while.”

She paused expectantly, but he didn’t offer her any. He had yet to forget the clammy, skittering fear-shock of waking to himself on her sofa, with Vladiska in front of him and no memory of how he’d gotten there. He certainly hadn’t forgiven it yet.

He ate. She fumed. They were both silent. When he was finished, Xavier took his plate to the sink and left it there, because there was no real reason to wash up. “Am I going to get my necklace back?” he asked, washing the syrup off his hands. He felt naked without his tags.

Eteire tossed a gleam of gold and steel at him; he saw it from the corner of his eye and snatched it out of the air. “Vladishka said to keep it safe,” Eteire warned, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

He slipped the chain over his head without commenting. The familiar weight helped him breathe. “I’m ready to go when you are.”

“Then let’s get going.”

He shoved the book on top of the clothes in his bag, and zipped it shut for the last time.

The clock on the hallway table said _06:02_ when he shut the door and dropped the keys in his pocket.

*

The car waiting for them on the street made Xavier stop in his tracks. _“That’s_ our ride?” The pristine Lamborghini Ardat was a machine he had seen only in magazines, a Night Mare of metal and chrome. This one was sleek and dark as silk and _gorgeous_. In his mind’s eye, the car’s spirit tossed its mane and bugled, flaring red eyes.

At his side, Eteire sniffed. “No, it’s _your_ ride,” she said with all the impatience of a woman speaking to a particularly stupid child. “I have a few more errands to run before take-off.”

 _Take-off?_ Before Xavier could ask what she meant, a tall black woman stepped from the driver’s door. “Eteire. Is this him?”

“It is. I leave him in your capable hands.” None of them missed the sarcasm. “Toodles, Xavier. Try and behave yourself.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and started walking down the empty street, apparently oblivious to the cold despite her thin jacket.

“Shall we?” The newcomer gestured to the car, and the hood popped open. “I will take your bag.”

“It’s heavy,” Xavier warned as he handed it over. His eyebrows rose when she swung it over her shoulder like a handbag and walked towards the back of the car without glancing at him.

Eyeing her, Xavier opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. He only had a moment to drink in the luxurious interior before his escort sat down beside him and closed her door behind her. She paused only long enough for him to fasten his seatbelt before she turned the key and they were off.

She made no conversation, so to distract himself from the thick pool of impatient anticipation in his stomach Xavier stole discreet glances at her. Noticeably taller and more muscular than Aveyar, her eyes had the same jewel-like quality as the obiri’s when he met them in the rear view mirror—but hers were amethysts, not garnets, shining starkly against her dark skin. The black leather catsuit she was wearing hugged her body from her chin down, vanishing into steel-capped boots, and had a white skull that looked more canine than humanoid printed on her solar plexus.

It also bore a dozen slender knives tucked into neat sheaths all over her body: two on each thigh, another pair at either hip, one fastened to each forearm, two plain hilts peeking from behind her shoulders, and no doubt more that he couldn’t see.

If Vladishka had changed her mind and wanted him dead, Eteire could have done the job when she knocked on his door—he had no defence against her mana, after all. But it was still unnerving to sit next to someone so casually sporting so many blades in plain sight.

What did she need them for?

They left the city behind. Xavier began to wish he had kept the book with him instead of packing it in his bag; a glance at the dashboard’s clock told him they’d been driving for nearly an hour, with no conversation or music. He could feel nerves beginning to nibble at him, unhindered by any distraction, feasting on the silence. With nothing else to think about, his thoughts ran in useless circles, unable to brace himself for the future because he had too little information to imagine all the possibilities—but driven to try anyway, uselessly. If this were all some kind of trick, what possible benefit could there be for the perpetrators? If it wasn’t—where were they going? Amaris? What was the climate like, the people, how would he communicate with anyone but Vladishka and Eteire? What would he be expected to do?

Why had Al gone, and why did he want Xavier to follow?

When the clock’s ruby numbers declared 07:04, the driver glanced over at him. “If you are hungry, there is food in the glove compartment.” He hadn’t noticed her accent before, and it didn’t surprise him that he couldn’t place it.

“Thanks.” Opening the compartment revealed a surprisingly large stack of sweets. He took a pack of M&Ms—his favourite since childhood—and almost closed the stash away before thinking to offer some to his escort. “Do you want anything?”

She flashed a surprising smile his way. “An Echo would be nice.”

He had never heard of it, but found the name printed in white on a blue wrapper. He grabbed it and handed it over.

“My thanks.” The woman opened it with one deft hand, and almost faster than Xavier’s eyes could follow it was gone. She scrunched up the wrapper and dropped it down by her feet.

Either she burned off all the sugar being a scary assassin, Xavier thought critically, or obiri—if she _was_ an obiri—had much faster metabolisms than humans.

“My apologies for my demeanour,” the woman said suddenly without taking her eyes from the road. “I am quite tired. But the sugar helps. May you pass me another?”

Feeling the pieces of this mini-mystery beginning to come together, Xavier obediently found her another. This time he opened the wrapper for her before handing it over. “No problem. I know the feeling.” When she gave him an odd look over the chocolate, he explained, “Being tired, I mean.”

“Ah, yes.” She said nothing more for a few moments, and Xavier thought they had gone back to the silence when she announced, “I am Syrelle.”

She pronounced it _Sir-ell._ “Xavier,” Xavier said. “Although since you came to pick me up I suspect you probably knew that already.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Then, abruptly, “We are here.”

Xavier sat up. They were approaching an ornate gate, one shaped to resemble a pack of snarling wolves gathered about an upright spear. Syrelle made no signal, but as they came near it opened to allow them in, the spear splitting in half as the gate swung open without a sound. It shut behind them just as silently, and instantly the car was swallowed by thick tree cover, sunlight dappling the road in emerald and jade as it filtered through the branches above.

They saw no living thing but the trees, and no sign of any human—or humanoid—habitation until the forest suddenly gave way like a magician pulling back the curtain, opening up into a gravelled courtyard. Syrelle pulled up the car in front of the largest house Xavier had ever seen. It looked like a film set or a castle, all crenellated grey stone and archaic windows, garbed in waves of ivy like a Queen in sweeps of green silk.

Syrelle cut the engine while Xavier was still taking in the view. “Follow me,” she instructed, and climbed out of the car.

Xavier followed obediently. “Should I get my bag?” The immense presence of the house was a near physical thing, a weight as the air before a storm.

“Yes, that would be wise.”

She took the steps leading up to the door two at a time, as lithe and quick as a ballerina, while he collected his bag. Her knives were much more visible in the sunlight, Xavier noticed as he followed her up, wondering as he did who could possibly live here.  And how could such a place exist so close to the city? Surely he would have noticed if they’d passed into Kent?

The stained glass window above the door depicted a black wolf standing guard behind a spear. Before he could examine it any more closely, a familiar voice jolted him out of his reverie.

“Syrelle, you found him.” Aveyar grinned at Xavier, revealing white teeth. “Come in. Vladishka says not much longer.”

“Not much longer until what?” Xavier asked. He refused to feel afraid of this man—regardless of the fact that Aveyar had had those bladed gloves against his throat less than twenty-four hours ago.

The obiri closed the door behind them, and abruptly Syrelle was gone, vanished as wholly as if the shadows had swallowed her. “Until we leave, of course,” Aveyar said casually, as if nothing unexpected had occurred. “We are finally leaving this Zysainae-forsaken planet of yours.”

 _I figured_ , Xavier thought. Though he would have felt better if he’d known how they were planning to leave. “What is this place, anyway?” he asked as he followed Aveyar deeper into the house. It felt unnervingly as if he were travelling further and further away from all he’d ever known, into the shadowy depths of mystery.

And in a way, wasn’t that true?

“An outpost.” Aveyar dodged the dozens of flitting shapes that blurred past them, men and women running at superhuman speeds back and forth through the corridors. Xavier tried to catch glimpses of what they were doing, but they moved far too quickly. He thought some of them might be carrying things—boxes or bags, possibly—but he couldn’t make out enough to tell.

“An outpost?” It didn’t help that the house was all gloomy shadows. Did obiri really like the whole gothic scene, or did they just have better eyes than humans? “Who are you guarding against?”

Aveyar grinned. “No one. That implies that we have something to fear from you.” The thought seemed to genuinely amuse him. “No, this place was built to monitor your species. Occasionally we step in to prevent you from killing yourselves off, but otherwise we merely watch and study.”

His dismissive tone reminded Xavier, with a burn of smouldering anger, of what Vladishka and Eteire had told him about these creatures experimenting on human beings. _Plagues. Rape. Abuse._ It was all in the legends. And what about human sacrifice? That was a whole nother nest of snakes. But he took a deep breath, telling himself that it was the height of stupidity to pick a fight with this man, of all people. And once he really thought about it, the idea seemed intriguing. _Watch and study what?_ What would other races find interesting about his own? Interesting enough for their researchers to leave their own worlds and come here?

 _Like scientists watching monkeys in the jungle_ , a voice whispered, and he grit his teeth.

Like Syrelle, Aveyar seemed to be unaware of the social norms that demanded the making of conversation with a guest. At any other time Xavier would have embraced the lack of small-talk, but just then he would have welcomed a distraction from the building tension, if Aveyar had offered one. But perhaps obiric social norms were different, or maybe Aveyar’s thoughts were just far away, more focussed on the men and women moving like worker bees in and out of the hundreds of rooms than on his escortee.

“How soon until we leave?” Xavier finally asked when Aveyar led him into a large room. Floor to ceiling windows gave a view of a garden as flat and smooth as a roll of marzipan, incongruous when compared to the forest he and Syrelle had passed through to get here. _Is it because they don’t like gardening, or to give intruders no cover?_

“A quarter-jar,” Aveyar answered promptly, without consulting any timepiece. “I believe that is half an hour by your measurements. Please wait here. Someone will be in to escort you when it’s time.”

“Mm.” Xavier dropped his bag to the ground. “Is there anywhere I can grab a shower before we head off?”

“Certainly.” Aveyar directed him to a door on the right, then disappeared back into the corridor before Xavier could thank him.

The door Aveyar had indicated opened onto a windowless bedroom done up in dark blue and cream, as bare of personal touches as something in a hotel. Beyond _that_ , Xavier found a bathroom, blessedly human and familiar, even if he couldn’t read the writing on the bottles and had to guess what was shampoo and what was soap. But there was hot water, a seemingly endless supply of it, and fluffy blue towels waiting on a rack when he was done, and by the time he was dried and dressed again Xavier felt kindly even towards Eteire.

At least until he walked back into the first room and found her draped over the couch there.

“You almost scrub up well, human. If I were drunk, I might be impressed.”

“I can tell our relationship is going to be a source of constant joy, Jessica,” Xavier said dryly. Vladishka, sitting next to the brunette, grinned. “Are we leaving?”

“As soon as I give you this,” Vladishka said. “Here.” She held out a gleam of silver towards Xavier.

He took the object cautiously, setting his bag down at his feet so he could turn Vladishka’s gift over in his hands. It was an archaic-looking bracelet, a cuff of hammered silver engraved with the crest he recognised from the window outside: a wolf standing behind a spear. A single white gemstone of a kind he’d never seen before had been set in the spearhead. “Thanks. Just what I always wanted.”

“It’s a...” Vladishka paused. “No, the word doesn’t translate. But it will suppress your scent.”

The obiri version of deodorant? “Um, thanks.” Was she saying he smelled?

“It’s to stop you getting eaten,” Eteire snapped. “They’re _obiri_. Vampires. What do vampires eat?”

Xavier’s head snapped up. He glanced from Eteire’s smug smile to Vladishka’s calm mien. It was the latter that convinced him. “Your people want to fucking _eat_ me?” he demanded, not sure whether to be furious or panic. _How did I not think of that? The most integral part of the vampire myth, and I just fucking **forgot**? _ How had he not _once_ considered the fact that obiri—vampires—drank human blood? Not _once?_

Vladishka rolled her eyes. “We’re not animals. If you were in a room with a freshly baked cake, you’d want to eat it too, wouldn’t you?”

“I am not a cake!” Xavier snapped.

Vladishka’s lips twitched, but she sensibly suppressed her smile. “No. But you wouldn’t have an uncontrollable desire to eat the cake. You wouldn’t jump on it and start...” She waved her hand, searching for the word. “... _gobbling_. You could appreciate the smell and walk away. It’s exactly the same for us.”

Xavier’s eyes narrowed. “If you believed that, you wouldn’t be issuing me with this,” he accused, holding up the bracelet.

Vladishka shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. That’s what humans say, isn’t it?” She stood up. “Put it on and come along, please. The rest of them are waiting.”

Xavier glanced down at the cuff. He could put it on, it seemed, or walk out, but no third option appeared to be on offer. Deeply wary, but not sure what else to do, he pushed the cuff up over his right wrist.

Instantly the metal tightened, coiling and rippling liquidly, like an animal shifting to find a comfortable spot: the feeling was disproportionately terrifying, and he forced himself not to react. But the sensation lasted only an instant, and when it stopped the cuff was comfortably tight and the gemstone was glowing softly, like a steady candle-flame.

He tried not to think of all the other things it might do besides keep him smelling pine-fresh.

But Vladishka was already at the doorway, and Xavier had no choice but to follow, flexing his fingers warily and trying not to think about the bracelet and any spells it might contain. The hallways were empty now, and Vladishka led Xavier and Eteire through them like a labyrinth long since memorised, without hesitation. She had been here a long time.

Why?

There was no time for questions, and Xavier sensed that Vladishka wasn’t in the mood to answer any anyway. She brought them through various passageways and rooms to a steel door that looked more like the entrance to a bank vault than a back door to a garden, but opening it revealed rolling grass and a black-clad crowd, not shelves of paper treasure.

He did his best to appear nonchalant as Vladishka strode confidently among them, but in truth the uniform similarity of the men and women was eerie. It wasn’t just that almost everyone wore the same fetish get-up as Syrelle, although he dared anyone not to feel nervous around that many knives. It wasn’t even that they all looked alike: they didn’t. Most were cast from the same mould as Aveyar, pale as marble statues, short and lean, with the same inky black hair tied in the same long braids, like ebony ropes down their backs; but a double handful were as dark as Syrelle, taller than the others, their hair cut short.

Vladishka stood out like a star among ashes with her blonde hair.

No, the similarity came from their inhuman stillness, the way that they held themselves, which nagged at him until he realised it was close to the energy of army vets. Not exactly like that. But close. If someone had distilled the experience of the oldest SAS guys, it might be similar.

And they all had those unnerving eyes: red as Aveyar’s or purple like Syrelle’s. Just the fact that Xavier noticed unsettled him. You didn’t notice people’s eye colours, usually, not straight away, not from a glance. But this crowd—these _obiri_ —their irises shone, as if lit from within. Like jewels or candleflames; like nothing human.

They looked at him curiously, but no one stopped him. A few eyes widened at the sight of the cuff; others just glanced at Vladishka. Either way, he passed unmolested and grateful.

Vladishka stopped when she stood at the head of the crowd. She faced an empty space—there was nothing for her to do, but the crowd quietened as if there might be. All those eyes turned to face her, and the atmosphere became tense and thick with anticipation. Xavier wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to go.

 _This is it._ He didn’t need anyone to tell him. He could feel it.

But the metaphorical _bang!_ moment wasn’t a bang at all. With a sound like tearing cloth, Vladishka reached up to grab her hair and pulled hard. Xavier stared as the air parted like a split seam around her, blurring like a mirage, and underneath—underneath it her sunbeam hair was ash-black, streaked with a red as bright as if she had dyed the five crimson stripes with fresh blood. It was strangely anti-climatic, for all that it was something unearthly and insane to watch; Vladishka gave the gesture no dramatic flair. Rather than a magician performing a trick she seemed more like someone struggling out of a tight jumper, half-climbing out of the illusion until it fell like a shed skin at her feet in a shimmering, glittering heap.

She turned back around, and it took a physical effort not to show his shock. Her suddenly paper-pale skin and dark hair shouldn’t have surprised him, but somehow they did. It was still her—he still recognised her. But her cheekbones were sharper, and her face was a little narrower, and those _eyes_. They were like puddles of blood set in a pearl face.

He had thought she was the calm, understanding one, the logic to Eteire’s unthinking contempt.

He hadn’t understood her at all.

But those eyes passed him over, like a sea eagle searching for larger prey. She said something in that strange language he’d heard her use before, addressing Aveyar, the crowd, someone else.

His heart was pounding.

“Xavier. You need to take my hand.”

She was talking to him now, a wry amusement on her _(obiri)_ face. Her hand was outstretched towards him, palm up, waiting. Small and pale, but he felt the calluses when he took it. They were worse than his own, and he remembered her claim that she was a fighter. She had been serious.

“And mine,” Aveyar said, suddenly appearing at Xavier’s other side. Wordlessly, Xavier clasped his wrist too. Everyone was linking up, he noticed—holding hands, linking arms, even hooking fingers through the belt loops of their neighbours.

“Hold tight,” Vladishka warned. “And do _not_ let go.”

She waited until he’d obeyed her—and then the world exploded.


	9. Patch

_“Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you—they’ll damn you.”—Emily Brontë_

When Siavahda left her father’s study Aivorn was waiting, hidden in the shadow of some ancestor’s statue, the tattoos around his eyes dimmed for subtlety. He watched her slip through the door and head down the corridor.

 _Don’t do this,_ he heard his sister say. _She’ll call you or she won’t. Don’t give her your heart on a platter, Aivorn!_

As if it hadn’t already spent the last century nestled in Siavahda’s jewellery box.

He followed her. It was difficult to stalk someone from your own race—the _heyona_ that bound all members of a people together might not let him sense the emotions of his sister, several worlds away, but if he came too close to Siavahda she would sense his presence. Even in her arkadian body, she was part of the kern-rois web, so he judged his distance carefully, staying just out of reach of her _selnin_ —but close enough that her wards ought to detect him.

A test. If her spells were working, then she was well—he could greet her and remove himself, leave her to her privacy. But if they did not… If she needed to ground…

She half-stumbled, catching the wall for balance, and he had to forcibly prevent himself from leaping forward to help her. After a tense moment, she recovered and continued on her way, but he could see the slight trembling running through her body, making the coins on her clothes shiver and sing.

He knew what it meant. All of her inner circle had memorised the symptoms long ago, almost paranoidly watchful for them; the dizziness; the faint shaking that became violent, wracking tremors; the slurred words that lapsed into impenetrable silences; the eyes that weren’t covered in a vision’s misty glaze but filled with white fire like two tiny suns fixed in her eyesockets. Any one of the symptoms could presage disaster, but the one time all four had manifested together...

She tripped again, and he knew there wasn’t time to test her.

He caught her elbow before she could fall, his hand dark as ebony against her skin. “Blessed lady, you’re not well,” he said hoarsely.

She didn’t answer. She kept her face lowered, and being half a _sen_ taller he couldn’t see her expression without stooping.

Eight years. Eight years since the loss of her _nejika_ -soulmate, the barbarian dragon-mage Nakir. All the laws of life and logic said that she should have died when their bond was cut, but she had not—unique in this way as in every other.

But not unique enough to survive alone. And if Aivorn had hoped, shamefully, that Nakir’s loss might send her into his arms, well—it had, had it not? Without her _nejika_ to ground her power, it took life or death to anchor her fragment of soul within her flesh, sex or murder to earth the half-mad mana within her body—and she would not kill for relief. Not his AnKi; goddess-forged, divine daughter. Not her.

“Blessed lady?” Shame burned the back of his throat, but the words slid past it, fuelled by the familiar longing. Even asking ripped at his pride, because he knew he was not the one she really needed. Not the one she really wanted. “Do you need me?”

 _Need._ She didn’t need him, and they both knew it. She could have any man, woman, or _oset_ in the known worlds with little more than a glance. As Mahoroive, she could have demanded sexual service as tribute from the priesthoods, lithely beautiful acolytes who would have come eagerly to her bed; or she could build herself a harem, as was her privilege as an arkadian female. But she would no more do either of those things than she would ground herself with blood; they both knew that, as well.

Him she did not have to call. She did not have to fear that he came to her only out of obligation, and that made him the only option she would ever take.

A tremor ran through her arm beneath his hand. Alarmed, Aivorn’s other hand reached for her shoulder, but before he could touch her she snapped at him, gleaming white teeth morphed suddenly into sharp white knives behind her lips. Scales rippled over her skin, flowing up over her thickening arm in a wash of crimson and gold. Her clothes dissolved like shadows and she flung him from her, suddenly taller and thicker than any kern-rois could ever hope to be; and _stronger_. She hurled him into the wall of the corridor and pain exploded through his back and ribs, racing through blazing nerves like a scream.

“You presume much,” she snarled as he fought to breathe. Her upraised arm was tipped in claws gleaming with green venom: without touching him, she curled her hand into a fist, and he jerked against the wall, choking on a scream as he felt the pressure squeeze viciously around his heart. “Far too much, war-prince.”

He couldn’t get his breath back, and it had nothing to do with the pain. Staring out at him from a face twisted in loathing, her eyes were glowing.

Glowing white, like twin supernovas. The light of them was blinding.

“You need to ground,” he forced out desperately. He didn’t try to pull away from the wall; the suffocating weight of her power held him pinned, his bones creaking audibly beneath the crushing force. He breathed shallowly but quickly, unable to get a full breath. “AnKi-ja-morë! Look at yourself! You need—”

Her fingers flexed and he screamed without restraint, unable to hold back as razors ripped through his chest. Light flashed and glittered from the metal set into Siavahda’s scales, red- and green-gold pictographs that told her history, woven around the aureate tendrils that were part of her own body; they seared into his eyes like fire and he knew this story, he knew how it would go, he _remembered_. She shredded his liver and lungs and heart into pieces and he remembered hunting with his sister, tracking down the eight children who had witnessed the last time their daughter-divine had lost all control—

The best-kept secret in Duranki, and he was going to die revealing it—someone would hear, someone would come and _see_ —

Abruptly, Siavahda dropped her hand. Instantly the pain, all of it, was gone, and Aivorn sagged against the wall, gasping for air. Not real. It hadn’t been real—an illusion of agony, no more. A trick.

His skin was clammy with sweat. It would take less than a flicker of thought for her to make the illusion real.

“My Queen, my life is yours,” he whispered. “But if you would take it, at least let us go where no one else will hear.” No one could see her like this. It would destroy all their faith in the Mahorela Aoiveae, in the Goddess and the war. If she wouldn’t use his body to ground then he was prepared to give her his blood, but he had to get her away from the public corridors.

She stared at him, silenced, her glowing eyes inscrutable. But he could still read her expression, and he saw the moment that she understood what he offered.

For a second that felt an eternity, he saw her consider it.

He saw her _want_ it.

Against the wall, against her hold, he felt himself shiver, but he didn’t look away. It would be a terrible, agonising death—no quick merciful stroke but a vicious, bloody nightmare; she would rip him apart not with her spells but with her hands and glory in the steaming viscera like a rabid human, feast on his pain like a heartless goddess accepting sacrifice, for nothing else would sate the madness—but he did not look away.

She looked so desperately _hungry_ , like a starving child facing a feast. How could he not help her?

“It’s all right,” he said softly, gently.

 As if he’d broken a curse, panic swept across her face. “No!” She jerked away from him, sweeping her wings close around herself like a child with a blanket. _“No,_ Erra and seraphim, I won’t, I won’t!”

“Siavahda!” The spell holding him in place vanished, and without the support he fell to his knees, gasping at his freedom. But there was no time for relief, not with the wail tearing out of Siavahda’s throat, shredded on her fangs; her wings and tail lashing as if caught in a storm, the light streaming from her eyes—flooding the corridor with starfire—

 _“No!”_ she screamed—and she spun away from him, flinging her wings wide and the air tore before her, a gash of gold-and-silver. Instantly the hallway was a maelstrom of wind and Wind, the ever-shrieking voices of reality’s harpstrings tearing through tapestries, statues, backhanding Aivorn off his feet just as he climbed upright—he could hardly see for the light and the storm—

_“Siavahda!”_

She leapt through the portal and he dived for her, too slowly; she was gone, light and Winds gone with her and the sour tang of her fear thick in the _heyona_ —the entire palace would have felt that but Aivorn had no time to consider it, only wrenched at the last spark of her spell and ripped it open anew—

Flung himself through it—

It snapped closed behind him like a mouth swallowing him down, into a monster’s gullet of _azure-cobalt-indigo-turquoise-cerulean-sapphire-cobalt-glaucous-celeste-sky-azuline-lovat,_ hurling through a thousand-thousand shades of endless pavonated light, rushing and streaming and singing past him like an ocean, a wild free-fall that ripped away his senses in a flash; breathing light, breathless, his skin stripped away and his soul eroding, dissolving into the current, into dizzying bliss—

With an enormous effort of will, he pulled his Self back together and dived out of the stream, snatching at the shadow of his Queen’s passing. He tumbled onto soft earth in darkness, surrounded by hundreds of tiny bioluminescent blossoms, and instantly rolled to his feet, chasing after the echoing sense of the one he served. Stars stretched on forever overhead in constellations he didn’t recognise, where _was_ he—?

Again he saw the flash of light as Siavahda, ahead of him, leapt through another portal; he followed almost instantly, only a beat behind her. Again the two of them plunged through the ephemeral waters of the life-strands; again Aivorn had to focus almost all his being on fighting the seduction of that unearthly rapture, the call to become pure energy—and cease to be.

She tore herself free and he flew after her; this time into ice and snow and a sky ablaze with twin moons. He had no time to ward himself against the euphoria as she fled and he jumped after her again, but he was sane and solid and well-trained; how was _she_ doing it? How could she hold to herself in her state—he had to stop her, had to catch her; if she lost herself—

It was a race without prizes, only potential penalties.

 _Flash_ a jungle, startling a flock of hummingbirds and tiny pixies _flash_ a desert, a clan of _daruk_ dragons silhouetted against the red dawn _flash_ a city of gleaming chrome and crystal, winged horses overhead _flash_ coniferous trees and cool water and the fleeing silver shadow of a unicorn _flash_ a waterfall _flash_ clifftop _flash_ bright sunlight gleaming on phoenix feathers _flash_ a wooded campsite, huts of felt over wooden frames _flash_ a panther’s yellow eyes watching them race past _flash_ crumbling statues and she was pulling ahead _flash_ further and further _flash_ and _flash_ then _flash_ —

Blood.

He staggered to a halt. The smell hit him first, like a blow: thick and sick and familiar.

The sight was worse. The road beneath his feet looked like a wound in the earth, soaked with crimson gore. Some enormous force had ripped open the spherical TS4 vehicle, leaving shattered glass and torn astro-steel scattered everywhere like broken eggshell. And the carrier’s occupants—

Aivorn raised a hand to his chest, remembering the sensation of his organs being ripped apart. But what Siavahda had done to these people was no illusion.

She knelt in the middle of the road as in a river of gore, sobbing, not draconian now but arkadian once more. Blood like honey and tears slicked her skin, matting in her hair. She was clutching pieces of one of the victims.

Even with decades of experience on the fields of war, he could not tell what race these people had belonged to.

As he watched, blue healing light burst from Siavahda’s palms, staccato, like the pulse of a dying bird. Again and again, he tasted sandalwood and salt on the back of his tongue as she frantically tried to weave a healing spell. Her arms were sleeved in red up to the elbows.

But her eyes were no longer alight with immortal madness.

“It’s done, Siav.” She looked up at that; it was not his name for her. It didn’t belong in his mouth, but he didn’t know if anything else would call her back. “It’s done. Let them go.”

“No.” She shook her head quickly, sharply. Her tears carved clean trails through the blood masking her face. “No, I can do this, I can _fix_ this, just let me f-fix it—I—I didn’t—”

 _But you did_. He didn’t say it. He couldn’t be that cruel.

She probably hadn’t been hunting for them. It was an accident. They had crossed her path and she hadn’t been able to help herself. It wasn’t her fault.

“It’s not your fault.”

He pried the dead flesh from between her fingers, and held her as she cried out her guilt.

*

He carried her back to Sarakei cradled against his chest, a glamour cast over her like a blanket to cover her nakedness and the blood. She was fast asleep, exhausted by their race and the wracking storm of tears that had come to her with her sanity.

He was exhausted himself, but he would never falter in her service.

Farien was there to meet them when they arrived, but Aivorn gave the arkadian Siduro one shake of his head and Farien withdrew in silence.

A strong but gentle charm scrubbed the worst of the gore away without waking Siavahda, and Aivorn set her down in his bed. He didn’t climb in beside her; she had made it clear that his attentions were no longer welcome, for whatever reason, and he would respect that. He drew the blankets up over her shoulders carefully, his throat tight at her fragility.

He paused a moment beside the bed, looking down at her. Sometime in their journey home, Siavahda had shifted again, taking her kern-rois form, perhaps because, against his chest, like called to like. Her chinta-roisen shone like diamonds around her sleeping eyes. He had to resist the urge to trace the tattoos with his fingertips.

He’d never meant to fall in love with her. She had been—still was—so young, and she’d had Nakir, the half-wild boy raised by dragons. Her bruised eyes and sharp tongue had said clearly enough that she needed no one else.

And yet, and yet... It was so hard to explain. Kern-Rois had been a dying world until she came. Few people understood how important the AnKien truly were, because so few people had been forced to survive without one. The kern-rois knew. It had been nine thousand years since their AnKi-al-it—the second-in-line to the AnKi’s throne—Kalyia handfasted with Ultei, third in line to the throne of Niflheim. Neither had been expected to take the respective crowns, and when they left their kingdoms to explore Duranki together, their families were sad but not forbidding.

And then: disaster. Kalyia’s older sister died in battle, without heirs. It took another two generations for Niflheim’s line to fail, but it did.

Nine thousand years. Eighteen generations without an AnKi. Niflheim had been bereft for two and a half thousand years, but it was a world of ice and darkness and hardy people who could survive almost anything. They suffered, yes, no one could argue otherwise. But not as much as Kern-Rois had.

Famine. Disease. Longer winters. Earthquakes, tsunamis, every manner of natural disaster struck, and struck hard. Civil wars, failing birth-rates, and worse, each generation birthed fewer and fewer strong mages to stand between the people and calamity. Aivorn and his twin sister were one of a handful to wear the upper ranks of the roisen from their generation, a minor miracle.

And then Kalyia’s crown had woken, alerting them to the proximity of one meant to wear it.

It had meant another civil war, between those who were happy with the government they’d forged for themselves and those who wanted to leave Kern-Rois to search for their rightful AnKi. It had been short, vicious and bloody. Friends had died. Aivorn and Zyvian had both been made war-princes for the blood on their hands, and Zyvian had been named _Tierja_ , the rose-whose-thorns-are-swords.

They had both been among the seekers Kern-Rois and Niflheim had sent to find the AnKi.

And what had they found? A knot of children with bruised eyes, fleeing the Scholal Massacre and the horrors of Luparrin. Siav, and her dragon-boy, among them.

Aivorn bent his head to press a kiss to Siav’s brow—but stopped, remembering; that was forbidden him now. That she was unconscious made no difference when she’d made her position on his touch all too clear.

He could remember, still, the moment when he knew he was lost. Months of teaching her Kern-Rois’ language and etiquette and culture, of showing her the cities, the people, the dances she would have to know for the coronation—months of her quick intelligence and fierce loyalty, of her small, careless kindnesses and her devotion to the people who had prayed for her existence for so long—all that, and it still came down to one moment.

Not when she climbed the steps to the throne, or when the crown was placed on her hair. Days before when, after four hours of excruciating pain, she turned to him with her roisen tattoos new and raw on her face, and despite the angry red skin, the blood, the hurt, had joked in a voice hoarse from screaming, “Well? How do I look?”

And she had stolen his heart.

If she knew, she had never mentioned it. Why would she? Nakir was her _nejika_. A lover, she might have put aside, or taken Aivorn as well—but _nejikan,_ soulmates, were forever, and monogamous.

But when Nakir was gone...When Daeron stole him away, and somehow cut the soulbond...When Siav, against all expectations, had survived the loss...

Then she had approached him. So perhaps she had known all along, after all.

He turned away from her and moved towards the door, his chest gone tight. Farien, and Enandir, would both be demanding an explanation.

But he wished that she would stay, here in his bed, rather than leaving when she woke.


	10. A Whole New World

_“You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand.”—Irene C. Kassorla_

 

Xavier tried to duck the detonation of golden light, but it burst forward like a bomb blast and swept over them like the sea, and suddenly they were gone, torn into somewhere gold and cold and _other_ , a whirlwind of _aeneous-croceate-flammeous-icterine-ochre-saffron-viridian-xanthic_ light like the holy vision of a madman. Winds roared, lashing at his clothes and hair with whips of ice, screaming in his ears until he screamed back out of panic and frustration, out of a defiance that caught fire on adrenalin. He couldn’t hear it over the storm, could hardly see through the gale clawing at his eyes and making them water, could only feel Vladishka’s hand locked around his wrist like a manacle and Aveyar’s stony grip, and the wind, the light, shrieking piercing _screaming_ at him, screaming until he could almost hear words in it, words of loss and rage, almostalmostalmost able to make them out as they hurled him around and over and sideways and he was going to be _sick_ —

He slammed into the ground with dizzying, bruising impact, followed a second later by the most intense cold he had ever felt in his life.

For a moment he lay stunned, before he realised that he had lost the anchor of the others’ grip and panic set in. He forced himself to sit upright—and was overcome with awe at the sight waiting for him.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet and slowly turned in a circle to take it all in. He was not lost as he’d first feared—Vladishka, Aveyar, Eteire and all the rest were standing close by, getting their bearings after their tumultuous journey—but he was not on Earth anymore. Not in the garden of some countryside manor house. He was standing on a mountain, thousands of feet up in a slate-grey sky, surrounded by miles of undisturbed snow. He shoved his hands under his armpits and stamped his feet to try and warm up a bit, but abruptly his eyes focussed and he realised what he was looking at.

Xavier had been cursing the Honduras heat at the start of the year, thinking longingly of New York’s snowbound streets when Jackson had passed around the photos his girlfriend had sent him, printouts from some news site. Xavier had stared at the half-dozen pictures from the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival somewhere in China, and even the grainy quality of the printouts and the crumpled paper wasn’t enough to keep him from awe. Huge blocks of ice carved with saws and lasers, constructed into fantastic edifices and decorated with lights that turned the event into a fairytale kingdom at night: skyscrapers and waterfalls and Egyptian sphinxes, an enormous Buddha alongside a crystalline griffin, a made-to-scale copy of the Coliseum in Rome shining like diamond next to a giant chess set straight out of _Harry Potter_.

They had nothing on this.

The bastion in front of him didn’t glitter or shine like a children’s story: it was rough and simple, with a raw kind of natural beauty as if it had grown out of the mountain. And maybe it had, because from this distance there was no sign that the structure had been shaped by human—or humanoid—hands. More than a dozen towers spearheaded into the sky behind the fortress’ tall, thick walls, but they looked like mountain peaks, not the kind of thing reminiscent of medieval Europe, and as for the main building... It, too, was nearly invisible against the mount and the sky, carved of ice and dusted with snow.

What kind of creatures, he wondered now, made their homes out of _ice?_ Even the Inuit didn’t do that anymore.

“Xavier!” Vladishka’s voice; he spun around, looking for her. “Come here before you freeze!”

He trudged through the snow, wishing someone had warned him about the climate they would be visiting; he would have dressed more appropriately. His jacket wasn’t made for sub-temperatures, and the cuff Vladishka had given him felt like solid ice beneath his sleeve. But only he and Eteire seemed to feel the cold. Everyone else was laughing and talking excitedly, hurrying up the slope towards the fortress.

A fortress on another world.

Xavier’s head spun, and he looked up. The sky was an unchanging sheet of iron-grey, but would there be stars above it? Would he be able to see Earth through a telescope, or the Milky Way? Was his sun a tiny twinkling dot from here, or was it completely gone? Was he in an entirely separate dimension from it, as Eteire and Vladishka had told him, or only in another galaxy?

“Xavier!” Vladishka grabbed his arm, and she managed to look both worried and angry. “Here.” She pressed her thumb against the gemstone—didn’t mutter any magic words or make any elaborate gestures, and she certainly didn’t wave a wand, but suddenly his skin was shimmering and he was warm.

He jerked his hand away. “What did you do?” He turned his palm over, pushing up his sleeve to see how far the oil-like gleam went. 

She was already turning away. “Activated the heat-shield in the cuff. You wouldn’t survive in these temperatures without it.” She started pulling him along, and Xavier, a little dazed, followed her.

“What about obiri?” he managed, swallowing hard and trying to get his racing heartbeat under control. _It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s just like an invisible coat or something._

“We don’t feel the cold.” _Evidently_ , her voice said.

“Of course not. Stupid question,” Xavier muttered. She ignored him, and he focussed on walking. His toes had been going numb, but they felt fine now. Even his fingers and ears were comfortably warm, despite the biting wind. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been in that strange golden place. Which gave him fuel for another question. “What was that—thing? The place we passed through to get here?”

She sighed. It was the sound of someone sure that their explanation would not be understood. “That was us travelling through the space between worlds.”

She was right. He didn’t understand. She picked this up from his face and elaborated. “The worlds are connected through the threads of Duranki—you saw them in the map Siav left in your necklace. If you’re strong enough, you can...step sideways...and travel through those threads to wherever you want to go. Like a wormhole, I think you might call it. _We_ call it _kasadu_.”

Wormholes. Maybe it _was_ just another galaxy, not another dimension. “Strong enough?” he queried.

“The strength of your mana.”

He probably couldn’t travel back the way he’d come on his own then. “So how did we ‘step sideways’?” he asked, curious now. “I definitely didn’t do that intentionally. Did you lot pull me along with you?”

“No. Remember the null we told you about? The anti-mana barrier around Earth? I broke that, and then pulled you lot through with me.” She squeezed his arm warningly. “Now save your breath. We’re here.”

Indeed they were. The ice castle’s outer walls stretched high above their heads, huge and imposing, and as they approached cries came from the battlements. Xavier had no idea what they were saying, but Vladishka broke into a grin and several of their escort started laughing and waving to the people above.

 _“Natesha aikeerae ulta!”_ Vladishka shouted, or something like it, and slammed her hand onto a square of the wall indistinguishable from any other part. Xavier almost wasn’t surprised when the ice lit up around the outline of her hand, when previously invisible doors swung open to admit them. After the _kasadu_ , it seemed almost normal.

The courtyard they entered was covered in snow, and there were several smaller buildings that hadn’t been visible from the other side of the walls. People on the battlements were cheering, or climbing down to greet them, and Vladishka was laughing and smiling but kept them moving towards the castle. It was larger than he ever could have imagined—up close, Xavier thought the thing must be five or six times the size of Buckingham Palace, and like the outer gate, the doors that opened to allow them inside could have accommodated a dragon, never mind a double handful of humanoids.

Did dragons exist, too? 

And then they were inside, the great slabs of the doors closing behind them with a thick grating sound.

Xavier’s breath still curled from his lips like smoke, and he was doubly grateful for the heat-shield. It made sense that there would be no welcoming fires in an ice palace, but he wondered how non-obiri visitors survived the cold—or were they all given cuffs like his on arrival? He couldn’t make himself care much, not with so much to look at: did the famous ice hotel in Sweden have anything like the sweeping staircase that took up the back wall of this huge entrance hall, decorated somehow with blocks of black ice, or the twin wolf statues standing on either side of the bottom step? What about the niches hacked into the walls at regular intervals near the ceiling, each one housing a different statue carved from a different material; rose quartz, amber, wood, jade, smooth marble? Ribbons of cool light flowed through the ice-walls like veins, illuminating the space and those standing in it.

The whole effect was dizzying and, though gorgeous, not particularly welcoming or warm. Xavier resisted the urge to hug himself as Vladishka addressed her obiri escort with quick, warm words and an unfamiliarly bright smile.

“Now what?” he asked as the other obiri vanished, dozens of black blurs fleeing the entrance hall.

 _“Now_ we’ll go find my mother,” Vladishka said, striding forward as if she owned the place. “She’ll be at breakfast.”

There was only one part of that sentence that made its way to Xavier’s brain. “Mother?” As in, her mom lived here? In a _castle?_

Christ.

“I asked them not to,” Vladishka was telling Eteire, who seemed to be complaining about the lack of a welcoming committee. It was amazing how she—Vladishka—blended into the walls, now that she was dark and pale instead of blonde and sun-kissed. Her dark jeans and white shirt only added to the effect. As if she really did belong here. “I want to surprise her.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Eteire asked. “Surprising a _Dracula?”_ She said it as another person might have said ‘waking up a _bear?’_

“Don’t tell me Stoker was actually talking sense,” Xavier interrupted, catching up to them. “I’ve _seen_ you lot out in sunlight.”

Vladishka glanced at him, confused and mildly annoyed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She looked to Eteire. “What is he talking about?”

“He’s referring to a classic of human literature with truly laughable ideas about obiri,” the other woman explained with a pained sigh. To Xavier, she said scathingly, “ ‘Dracula’ is the title of the obiri AnKi. Forget _everything_ Stoker said.”

Xavier held up his arm pointedly. The silver bracelet gleamed in the light from the walls as they headed up the staircase. “So they _don’t_ drink human blood?” 

Eteire rolled her eyes without answering, and Xavier concentrated on staying close to Vladishka as she strode up the stairs and led them left. Even through the spell protecting him, Xavier could feel the cold weight of the castle as they entered a hallway—it was like walking into the throat of some ice monster, one trying to swallow them whole. The occasional signs that they were in a building, not a living creature—the guards in black-and-white uniforms, the eerie lights burning steadily in the walls, the graceful statues marking corners, the small waterfalls and ponds wherever three or more corridors met—didn’t quite dispel his vague fears that he was going to be digested by this thing. And as if that wasn’t enough, the maze of long hallways, spiralling staircases and echoing chambers Vladishka led them through was making him dizzy.

He had absolutely no idea where they were in relation to the entrance hall by the time they stopped outside a pair of doors, decorated somehow with lines of black stone in some incomprehensible symbol. Vladishka barely paused to make some quick gesture at the guards—these ones all in black like Aveyar and Syrelle, not black and white—before flinging the doors open and striding through.

The room revealed could not have been more different from the corridors they’d been led through. Far from the icy chamber the path here had led Xavier to expect, the doors opened onto an enormous hall all of metal. Every inch of the floor and walls gleamed like a polished blade, giving the eerie impression that the room itself was as much a weapon as one of Syrelle’s knives… And it was far from empty. Someone must have gone ahead to let them know that their party had arrived, because the court of this place had gathered to greet Vladishka and her companions. Between thirty and fifty men and women were gathered at the far end of the room, dark hair and dark clothes gleaming beneath the brightly glowing ceiling; they stood in small groups, clustered at the base of the throne’s dais, utterly silent and wholly focused on the just-opened doors.

 But it was the figure in the throne who immediately grabbed Xavier’s attention. Once again Xavier’s assumptions proved incorrect; it was a woman, not a man, seated in that great chair of steel and onyx, and how could she not stand out? Hundreds of delicate steel rings encircled her throat, completely encasing it from just beneath her chin to the base of her neck, where they widened to spill out loosely over her collarbone like the chains of a necklace. Alone of everyone in the room her shoulders were bare, smooth and white, her arms wound with black ribbons that curled around her fingers and glinted like metal. Her shirt reminded Xavier of a corset, except that it reached higher, up to the hollow of her throat beneath the rings, completely covering her small breasts; the fabric wrapped around her chest and torso in a shimmer of crimson and ebony, leading into the plain black trousers and the surprise of her bare feet. She sat tall and straight, her hair a sweep of perfect darkness down her back, and not in a million years could Xavier have mistaken her for anything less than a Queen. If someone had announced that she was an Empress, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

Three men stood on the dais with her, halfway down the steps so that their heads were of a height with their Queen’s knees; two on her left, and one on her right, all of them with their hands clasped behind their backs like soldiers. All three wore a sleeve of rings around their necks like the Queen, but theirs were gold. They were all extremely handsome, each in their own way, and Xavier would have liked a chance to look them over properly, but just then the Queen rose to her feet, snapping the room’s attention to herself like a whip.

 )0(

“Vladishka.” Her mother’s voice was calm and even, but her head tilted into the ritual posture of _delighted surprise_ , eyes widening with warmth that Vladishka _selned_ down to her bones. “Welcome home.”

Even after twenty years away Vladishka’s hands and shoulders moved automatically through the set poses of obiric conversation: _homecoming gladness_ and _AnKi-ja-morë_ _to AnKi_ , the latter a constant whenever she spoke to her mother in public. “I am welcomed,” she said formally, clasping her wrists and bowing over them. She rose after the proper time—forty-five seconds—and lowered her hands to her sides, where everyone could see she had no weapons. She could _seln_ her mother’s questions, but it would be an unimaginable breach of courtesy to ask anything before Vladishka had eaten and rested.

So she wasn’t surprised when the Dracula clapped her hands. “A meal for my daughter!” she commanded. “A feast, to welcome her home!”

At once dozens of servants flit from the corners of the room to assemble the feasting table, and the food and drink to set on it. The table, made of interlocking pieces so that it could seat two or two hundred, was ready in seconds; a flurry of activity took place around it, blurs in the castle livery bearing dishes, plates, cups, and chairs. In less than a human minute all was prepared, the food still steaming and filling the chamber with the heavenly scent of real Sheol food. Vladishka’s mouth watered, but she bowed in the attitude of _honoured gratitude_ to the servants along with the rest of the court. Even the High-King and her three _syzýgous_ thanked the attendants for their work with the ritual posture before Dracula Zesangre led her daughter and courtiers to their seats.

 )0(

“And now we wait,” Eteire muttered.

“For how long?” Xavier looked away from the spread on the table. Images shifted and morphed on the burnished steel walls, lines of blue and black that danced from hidden projectors; most of the pictures they made were too stylistic for his eyes to make sense of. Behind the throne hung a huge banner that might have been silk, depicting an image he recognised instantly; it was the same wolf-and-spear as the stained glass window at the obiri outpost. A black spear stood tall on a blood-red ground, and a black wolf, lips curled back in a snarl, stood behind it facing the onlooker, as if it might leap out of the fabric at any moment and attack. Xavier supposed that was fair warning about the obiri gathered under its protection.

Eteire shrugged. “Until the Dracula decides to acknowledge her daughter’s guests. Who knows? Could be hours. Under their rules, we don’t exist until the Dracula makes some oblique reference to us. We could dance on the table and they wouldn’t acknowledge us until she said so.”

 _She_. So he’d been right: the woman on the throne _was_ the King. Queen. Dracula. And Vladishka’s mother.

Which made Vladishka some kind of princess. The AnKi-ja-morë. _‘Vladishka_ na _Vesh’dar Dracula-Imperial,’_ she’d called herself in Eteire’s apartment, he remembered. And sighed. You couldn’t make this shit up.

He glanced back at the Dracula and hoped that the acknowledgement came soon; being ignored sounded like a weird and potentially very annoying cultural quirk. “And once we exist?” He hated talking to Eteire. Hated having to rely on her. She made his skin crawl.

“Vladishka will declare us her guests, and we’ll be assigned escorts for our stay here. Only obiri and syrnans get to move here freely.” She showed her teeth. “Until then, we’re window dressing.”

 _I’d worked that out, thanks_. Xavier resisted the urge to grind his teeth. “And when can I find Al—Siavahda?”

 _Now_ she turned to look at him, and her blank expression was gone, replaced by a wryly twisted mouth. “You’re kidding, right?”

Something cold rippled down his spine. “What?”

Eteire laughed. “This isn’t Kern-Rois, ape. This is Sheol.”

“What?” _Sheol,_ _the Hebrew world for hell. Before it was translated as Hades_. Another one of those things Al had managed to drum into him. “So Al’s not here?”

“No,” Eteire said with a smirk. “Siav’s in Amaris. Where we are not.”

This time he _did_ grit his teeth, and then forced himself to think, to consider before giving Eteire the pleasure of his reaction. This was clearly Vladishka’s home, and possibly that of her men and women as well. It made all kinds of sense to make a pit stop. Especially since—hadn’t Vladishka said that _she_ was the one who had brought them here? Xavier knew next to nothing about this mana, but surely carrying that many people from one world to another was draining? Surely she needed, and deserved, a rest before they got down to business?

Whatever business was.

“Right,” he said calmly. “To be honest, I just really want to get to a room and dump my things.”

Eteire shrugged, apparently disappointed that he wasn’t more upset. “Yeah, sure. Once we have our escorts.”

Xavier sighed and shifted his bag to his other shoulder, wondering how long it would take before the Dracula deigned to recognize their existence.

To occupy himself he glanced over the men and women seated at the table. None of whom seemed to realise how clichéd they were. Every one of them wore black, although some of the outfits shimmered green or blue or violet under the light, like the sheen of colour on the old fossil fuel oils. At a glance they were all dark haired, pale and elegant as Chinese calligraphy. He spotted a handful of dark-skinned Syrelle look-alikes, and two blondes; one of the men wearing the gold neck rings had coppery red hair. Otherwise…it took physical effort not to smirk or snigger like a teenager at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I thought you said Stoker was _wrong?”_ he said to Eteire, amused despite everything. “These people are walking stereotypes!”

One of the obiri-shapes at the other end of the room looked his way, almost as if he had heard. But he couldn’t have—could he?

With a tired kind of resignation, Xavier hoped not. The guy looked ticked off. _Let me not have pissed anyone off already._

His knife was cold in his jacket pocket, the metal still cool from the walk outside.

“The dress-code predates Stoker,” Eteire said scathingly. “By several _million_ years.”

Adrenalin surged into his system, burning away the haze of exhaustion. Actually, the man looked murderous, and Xavier dropped his hand to his jacket pocket, wondering if he would have time to draw his knife if the guy did the blurring thing.

“Who is that?” he whispered. He could feel the cold of the blade through the jacket—it hadn’t yet warmed up from the trip outside.

“Who?”

Xavier nodded his chin at the obiri now talking furiously with Vladishka and the man Xavier assumed was her father.

Eteire raised her eyebrows. “Kheylan Dracula-Imperial _na_ Morsean.” For once she didn’t add any cutting commentary, just when it would have been helpful. That was probably why she didn’t.

“I thought the Dracula was the queen?” Xavier asked without taking his eyes from the guy.

“She’s High-King, yes. Dracula-Imperial is the name of the bloodline.”

“So Kheylan is related to the que—king?” Not a person to piss off. But what had he done? Kheylan _couldn’t_ have heard him—and even if he had, obiri had their own weird language. The ones who hadn’t been to Earth couldn’t speak English, could they?

Eteire smirked, taking great pleasure in Xavier’s unease. “Kheylan is her nephew,” she confirmed gleefully. “He’s going to _hate_ you.”

Before Xavier could do more than think _Fuck_ , Vladishka waved the others away and went to stand at the head of the table, where she started speaking. Her voice was loud and clear, but Xavier had little skill for languages; he couldn’t even tell where one word ended and the next began. All he caught was _ĕ_ _ronk_ _ō_ , and that because it was familiar. Where had he heard it before?

“She’s declaring us her personal guests,” Eteire murmured. _So we’ve been acknowledged,_ Xavier thought. Well, that hadn’t taken as long as he’d feared. “And assigning the escorts.”

This time he caught bits and pieces of it. “Kheylan,” Vladishka declared, and Xavier knew it was too much to hope for that the obiri princeling was being assigned to Eteire.

“Does she want me dead?” he asked as Eteire smothered her laughter behind a hand.

Eteire shrugged through her horrible little giggles, but shut up fast as all eyes turned to them.

Somewhere lower down on the table—closer to the doorway where Xavier and Et waited—a woman in one of the rare dresses left the table and approached Eteire with a cool, polite smile. Before his eyes Eteire morphed into someone sweetly approachable, smiling back brightly and chattering away in what Xavier assumed was the local lingo.

But Xavier had no eyes for that. His fingers flexed, hungry for the hilt of his knife as a far away figure pushed his chair away from the table angrily. He strode down the length of the table towards the doors, and every stalking, furious step increased the nervous tension in Xavier’s gut as the obiri came closer.

Because the man was glorious. No other word did him justice: the rage barely contained in him made Xavier’s heart stutter with a painful cocktail of desire and pure fear, as if he were face to face with an avenging archangel instead of a flesh-and-blood mortal. A waterfall of ink was swept back into a waist-length braid, revealing a face that challenged everything Xavier thought beautiful: silk and steel, henna-amber skin and an amethyst gaze, a jaw like a blade and eyes that didn’t so much coax you in as grab you at gunpoint. And far from discovering a secret softness or soulful bliss, anyone suicidal enough to fall into them would find nothing but blazing amaranthine hellfire. 

He was beautiful. Unearthly. Inhuman.

He was fucking terrifying.

For a moment Xavier’s heart froze with panic—but then the stalled engine inside him spluttered into life, and it needed fuel, and the fear burned. Anger swept through him in an incinerating wave: anger at his own response, at the sneering hatred twisting Kheylan’s face, at the confusion of the day and Al not being here and the frozen pit of this weird-damn castle—at everything. But most especially he was angry at being pushed around, at the patronising tone of all these vamps who clearly thought he was just some fucking animal to be led around on a leash. Valuable for purposes unknown, maybe, but still only a little higher up on the food chain than their pets.

When Kheylan came within spitting distance, Xavier lifted his chin and showed his teeth in a bare simulacrum of a smile. _Don’t fuck with me, pretty boy._

The obiri raised a single calligraphic eyebrow, his expression the epitome of vaguely curious disdain, but Xavier was better at reading faces than that. And even if he hadn’t been, Kheylan wasn’t putting much effort into disguising the raw hatred souring the perfect gloss of his eyes. _How cute. The insect thinks he can speak._

Xavier just smiled wider. He had no idea what he’d done to earn a perfect stranger’s hate so quickly, but he would not be pushed around. Not by some freakishly beautiful blood-sucking brat, an upper class leech sucking a silver spoon. Arrogant sunovabitch should have choked on it at birth. “So how did you get stuck playing pageboy?” he asked, wondering if the vamp understood a word. How were they supposed to communicate if Kheylan didn’t speak English? Interpretive dance?

With a withering glare, Kheylan put those questions to rest. “Because of the handful of us who speak English outside of a classroom, I am the only one who is also _ĕ_ _ronk_ _ō_.”

He still couldn’t remember what that meant. “Does that matter?”

“The laws of hospitality demand that the escort be as similar in type and kind to the guest as possible, for the latter’s comfort.” That was apparently all that Kheylan intended to say on the subject.

It wasn’t enough for Xavier. “How exactly are you like me?” At the last moment he bit his tongue to prevent anything worse from escaping. He had long since learned not to talk when it would piss off a superior, or get him in trouble some other way. But it was so very _not_ what he had expected to hear.

“I am not.” Each word rang out like the sound of a sword striking crystal. “Don’t think otherwise. I’ll show you to your room.”

The last seemed a non-sequitur—sudden, jarring the flow of their little dialogue—but Xavier managed to follow it as Kheylan swept past him through the doors. Eteire and her escort were already gone. When had that happened?

Xavier rubbed his eyes and refused to groan at the thought of being submerged in the maze of ice again, but he turned and followed Kheylan anyway.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. The dining hall must have marked some kind of halfway point in the building, because the smooth ice of the walls dissolved into equally seamless stone. Though at first Xavier thought that the floor was decorated with red and white tiles, he quickly realised that he was actually walking on a kind of giant television screen, the tiles only a sort of screensaver; their pattern shimmered and rearranged itself beneath his feet every few minutes in a manner dizzying to watch. Despite the torches burning every few feet shadows abounded, lounging in doorways and watching lazily as obiri and human passed them by; Xavier couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something real in the twilit corners, something more than just his mind playing tricks.

But there was so much to look at and try to absorb—too much for his tired brain. He couldn’t keep track of all the twists and turns Kheylan led him through, or how many stairs they traversed, both up and down. This part of the castle was clearly just as much of a maze as the black-and-white part, and Xavier gave up on trying to remember the way back to the stone hall _or_ the front doors.

Instead, he gave Kheylan’s strange get-up the once-over. It was much, much easier to look at him when Xavier didn’t need to see his face and could stare freely. The oddest thing about the man was his hair—black as ink, it was drawn up into a ropey braid that neatly bisected Kheylan’s skull from forehead to the top of his spine; raised thickly from the surface of his head, it drew the rest of his hair tight and flat. The plait hung almost to the obiri’s waist, as thick around as Xavier’s wrist, and every time they passed under one of the torches it glittered with crystal beads.

It should have looked feminine, especially with the length of it, but it didn’t. It was actually a little threatening, like someone carrying a gun in plain view, although Xavier couldn’t work out why he thought so. Maybe it was the fact that even from behind, Kheylan couldn’t possibly be mistaken for a woman. The lines of his body, smooth and controlled beneath his tunic, were hard and streamlined; slimmer than Xavier, he nonetheless seemed to be moulded of steel, not breakable or delicate in the least.

“This is your room,” Kheylan announced, stopping abruptly outside a door that looked no different to the hundreds of others they had passed. As he reached out to open it, Xavier noticed the black-on-black embroidery at the cuffs of Kheylan’s tunic. The same pattern repeated itself on the Mandarin collar—high and stiff, completely covering the obiri’s throat. “There is a hunt tomorrow morning, which you are welcome to attend.” His tone said otherwise. “But it is not compulsory for guests. Today, you may rest, or if you prefer I could provide a tour of the castle.”

He didn’t understand how these people spoke. One minute they were perfectly happy with contractions, and the next they were all formal. Xavier rubbed the space between his eyes with his fingers. “Since you’re my escort, will you be staying behind if I do, tomorrow?”

Kheylan didn’t bother to answer; he merely nodded.

Xavier forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Would you prefer to go on this hunt?”

Unadulterated surprise transformed Kheylan into someone who might actually be likable; it was quickly hidden. “I would.”

“Then I’ll go. I’ll take that tour, too.” Xavier glanced pointedly towards the open door. “Give me an hour first, though?” He wouldn’t mind a little time to himself. To just...sit and process.

Whatever else he was, Kheylan was court-trained and could take a hint. “I will. Please don’t wander away from your room,” he added as Xavier stepped past him and through the doorway. “It isn’t safe.”

Xavier paused, considered, and decided that right now, he didn’t want to know. “Fine,” he said. “Does this place have room service?”

The obiri didn’t answer, and Xavier suddenly felt cold. He turned to look back at Kheylan and felt his gut tighten at the white-hot _rage_ colouring the obiri’s face.

“Who gave you that?” he spat, his eyes fixed on the silver cuff on Xavier’s wrist. Xavier resisted the urge to flex his fingers.

“Vladishka,” he said calmly—far more calmly than he felt. “Why?”

Without answering, his face incandescent with fury, Kheylan turned and swept down the hallway and out of sight.

 )0(

“Was that wise?” The Dracula asked softly, watching the two young men leave the hall.

Vladishka followed her cousin with her eyes as he disappeared, but she didn’t answer the question. “The last thing I heard before the null closed on us was that you thought Daeron was hunting _sacrym_. Has there been any more news?”

“None.” There was no metamorphosis from mother to AnKi; they were one and the same, and her ruby eyes were cool and businesslike. The Kiss—the sigil marking her as Sheol’s AnKi, visible only to those born to other AnKi-or bloodlines—glimmered on her brow. “I passed the Civatateo’s concerns on to the other guardians, and they have all responded accordingly. But Iriandel is convinced that the _sacrym_ could not be used by Daeron or any other Vovim. Their essences would be, are, antithesis to the Erra’s tools.”

“And yet he’s searching for them,” Vladishka murmured, frowning. “Why?”

“Could Siavahda have some idea?”

“I don’t know.” Vladishka was silent a moment, considering, then said, “She killed her host body.”

She _selned_ her mother’s surprise even before her eyes widened minutely in _incredulous heart_. “Why?”

Vladishka shook her head. “She had some difficulties living in a male body, but I can’t imagine that would be enough to make her abandon us.” She paused. “It might have been guilt.”

The King’s silence asked the question for her.

Vladishka met her eyes grimly. “I had to break through the null to get us out,” she said quietly, watching her mother understand the faintest of shadows kissing the skin under her eyes, the bleached colour of her skin. The difference was so slight a non-obiri would never see it, but to one of her own people it screamed her exhaustion. “Siav left a message...I had to bring the human. Xavier.”

The Dracula took a moment to process this. “Does he know what breaking the null will have done?” she asked quietly.

Vladishka shook her head. “No, but I owe him a debt for it regardless.” Anger, hot and bright, flared in her, briefly overcoming her need for rest. “But so does Siav,” she said fiercely. “The null—she’s the one who closed it. _She’s the one who locked us in_.”

Her mother said nothing for a moment, her expression and posture unreadable. Finally her wrist curved in question.

Vladishka looked away. “Not deliberately,” she admitted. But she couldn’t find it in herself to forgive it, nonetheless. So it had been an accident. That didn’t mean it hadn’t forced Vladishka to take actions she regretted.

“You should rest,” her King said firmly, no doubt _selning_ her pain and exhaustion. “I will need a report from you, but it can wait. Go to bed, Vladishka.”

She knew an order when she heard it, but her heart panged.

Her mother _selned_ it, and held up a hand before she could speak. “Rekeishan will understand if you take a day to yourself,” she assured her daughter. “You are in no condition to go running to Arcadia, I think.”

Vladishka stood up from her seat, clasped her wrists and bowed, the angle a touch wry. “Then I will retire, _mâérerâgat_. If you would excuse me?”

The Dracula’s shoulders twitched minutely, and she waved Vladishka away, dismissing her.

Vladishka couldn’t now leave Sheol without her mother’s permission, and the relief she felt at that, striding through familiar hallways, came touched with guilt. She missed Rekeishan, wanted to _kasadu_ across Duranki and into zéiz arms after so long apart—but it had been twenty years since she slept in her own bed, and her bones ached at the thought of collapsing into it.

It was not a good moment for Kheylan to confront her.

 _“You gave him a_ dracŭlan _?!”_

Later she would blame it on the exhaustion, the tiredness that was the payment for destroying Duranki’s most powerful null and carrying almost two hundred people through the shards. But for a moment, she couldn’t process that someone was shouting at her. Obiri didn’t shout.

“What are you talking about?” she asked tiredly. The steel cords that usually bound her temper were fraying.

Violet eyes flaming, Kheylan snarled. _Snarled_. “That human pet you dragged home with you is wearing a _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan!”_

Her exhaustion froze over like a lake in winter. “I have every right to give him one,” she said coolly.

“You have _no_ right!” he snapped. “He’s _human_ , Ishka. Every last one of them is poison, and you just bound this family to protect one!”

 _Arms to call on, blades to shield, blood to boon._ That was the oath the _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ signified, and all obiri loyal to their Dracula were bound by it. _But I thought I would have at least a day before someone at court called me on it_ , Vladishka thought.

“I owe him,” she said instead. “And my debt is the family’s. Giving him a _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ was the only way to start paying it.”

“The only thing any of those monsters are owed is Vesh’dar’s mercy,” Kheylan hissed.

The cords snapped. “Then I guess it’s your lucky day,” she snapped. Red flickered at the corners of her vision, and it was enough to remind her to control her temper. There were times and places to loose the madness in the blood of the obiric AnKi-or, but this was not one of them. “The null locked us in, Khey. I had to break through it.”

That got through: he paused, and she saw him realising the implications, what it _meant_ , saw him understand. Understand and, slowly, delight in it. “Truly?”

Could his hatred really have turned what should have been loss into joy? “Yes,” she said bitterly. “It’s true, and I’m exhausted, so get out of my way. I need to sleep.”

Not joy. Peace. Relief, as if some great weight or pain had been taken from him. She saw it as he stepped aside and let her pass, but she couldn’t think about it now.

She would have given anything to have Rek here. Zé would have understood the look on Kheylan’s face, would have been able to explain it to her in a way she could understand.

She didn’t get three steps past him before one of the pages caught up to her, and told both of them— _mâéregel_ -princess and _mâéregan_ -princeling—that there was a child missing.


	11. Mettle

_“Funny how the word ‘question’ has the word ‘quest’ inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.”—Catherynne M. Valente_

After the way he had left, Xavier was surprised when he opened his door to find Kheylan standing outside it, his hand raised to knock again.

“There is an emergency,” Kheylan said bluntly. “As your escort, I cannot be too far from you, but I am needed. Will you come?”

“Yeah, sure—just let me grab my—” Xavier ducked back into the room and quickly fastened his gun holsters into place, throwing his leather jacket over the lot. “What’s happened?”  he asked, rejoining the obiri and trying to keep up as they half-ran down the corridor.

“There is a child missing from Amarande. Mihai Tihomira. Ey is twenty-seven, last seen—”

“Twenty-seven?” Xavier stopped running. “Hang on a sec. Isn’t _—_ what the hell is ‘ey’?”

Kheylan hissed with frustration. “Unlike less enlightened races, we do not impose gender roles on our children. When they are old enough, they choose for themselves their sex. Until then they are ey as you and I are ‘he’, yes? Ey, em, eirs—he, him, his. It is surely not important now!”

“They _choose—_ ” Xavier blinked, before remembering his original thought. “What I meant to say is, isn’t _—_ ey _—_ old enough to take care of…emself?”

Kheylan turned outraged eyes on him. “Ey is a _child_ , and _lost_. If you mean to delay us—”

“ _I’m_ twenty-seven,” Xavier pointed out.

The obiri hissed at him. “And I have seen a century and a half! What is your point? Just because humans live a blink of time does not mean the rest of us are so uncivilised!”

 _Uncivilised? Because of our_ life-spans? Xavier thought. Then, incredulous, _a century and a half?_

“But you look—” he found himself saying.

Kheylan hissed again, like a snake. “We age more slowly than you do! Now, do you suppose you could come to terms with this revelation at a more appropriate time? There is a _missing child_.”

Chastened, Xavier only nodded, and they hurried on. But inside his mind was whirling.

 _They must measure years differently. Surely. He can’t_ actually _be so old..._

He didn’t have long to think about it. Kheylan led him to a hall much like the one Vladishka and Xavier had been brought to when they arrived, but this one was packed to the seams and brightly lit.

Xavier stopped dead as all eyes turned to him. Red and purple gazes pierced him like knives, and just as quickly dismissed him. As one, they turned back to the man talking quietly on the small wooden stage, all of them as in sync as a flock of birds. It was eerie.

He couldn’t understand a word of the speech, so he looked over the crowd. Men and women alike wore tightly fitted clothing, with nothing loose or dangling to be caught on sharp edges or branches. They stood like army cadets, legs apart, hands clasped behind their backs, spines ramrod-straight, listening intently to whatever was being said. And yet he didn’t think they were soldiers. Some of these women had been in dresses when Xavier saw them at the Dracula’s table; none of these men had had knives strapped at their waists and wrists the way they did now.

 _They’re taking this seriously._ Not that a missing kid wasn’t serious, but this wasn’t the set-up Xavier had been expecting. Since when did the big-shots in the castle turn out in force to find some village brat?

The man on the stage clapped his hands twice, and people started leaving, dividing themselves into groups of four or five neatly and without discussion. “Where do we go?” Xavier asked.

Without answering Kheylan beckoned him to follow. They joined a group that went up two flights of stairs before finding a door that led outside.

A blast of cold ripped a hiss from Xavier’s teeth before a wave of warmth came from his bracelet, enfolding him in very welcome heat. The sky was still overcast, the clouds thick and dark. Not quite night, but something like; did it ever grow bright here?

“Can you ride?” Kheylan asked abruptly.

“Can I what?”

One of the women with them pulled a rod from her pocket and snapped it over her knee. It blossomed into bright light—some kind of glow-stick—and she held it aloft. Its light resolved what had been dim shapes into men and women holding the halters of—

“Oh _gods_ no.”

The others ignored him, but Kheylan rolled his eyes. “It is perfectly safe, I assure you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Kheylan sniffed. “I am not familiar with that phrase,” he said stiffly.

“I’m not getting on one of those,” Xavier said through gritted teeth. “How is everyone else travelling? What are the other options?” Did vampires have cars? _Please let them have cars._

“Vladishka and the others are riding out on Mordecai’s dragons,” Kheylan said blithely. “I assumed you would be more comfortable on something more familiar.”

“More familiar—?! The horses on my planet don’t have freakin’ wings!”

These did, though. And despite his first reaction, what should have looked unnatural and freakish was instead made perfect by some quality Xavier couldn’t name, something he couldn’t put his finger on but that reminded him of the tale Vladishka had told him yesterday, one of the words she’d used: _ooainyu_ , she’d called the animals of magic, _the_ _ones-who-are-more_. Because that was it: they were just _more_ , these not-horses, more beautiful than anything flesh-and-blood could be. Even ignoring the wings, they looked more like a dream of horses than something real, as if each one had been painted rather than born. The lines of their bodies flowed like water and silk, packed with powerful muscle, and spun so naturally into those huge, impossible wings—wings like those of swans or angels, and even the smallest of them had a wingspan of fifteen metres. The shimmering plumages matched their coats in normal horse colours, soft grey and black and coppery brown, but here and there their wings were interspersed with feathers that shone like embers or jewels—amber and emerald, sapphire and opal, pink tourmaline and alexandrite, not just glittering but glowing like stained glass lit by flames. Their eyes were monochrome, lacking pupils or whites: instead they were gold, viridian, metallic blue, their sockets ringed with tiny feathers like scales, colour-sheened like oil slicks. Their manes and tails were riotous rainbows, spills of blue and pink and violet and green, so many bright unnatural colours that Xavier assumed they were dyed; no creature, not even a magical one, could be born with colours like that. Their hooves shone like those stray glowing feathers, like cut gems.

Xavier finally found his tongue again. “What _are_ they?”

“They are senrimas,” Kheylan said, watching Xavier’s face. “The wind’s children. An elemental of the air covered a mortal mare and sired the first of them, millennia past.”

That meant very little to Xavier; the only elementals he knew were the ones some human witches called on in their rituals—salamanders, those were the fire ones, weren’t they? He couldn’t remember the others; he’d never gone in for it himself. He’d always understood that elementals were personifications of the four classical elements, anyway, not real creatures that could sire flesh and blood children!

While he hesitated, everyone else was mounting up. Xavier eyed them warily. The senrimas were fitted with bridles, but none of them was wearing a saddle.

“If you do not come, then I must stay also,” Kheylan reminded him—quietly but with a fierceness that surprised Xavier. “And we deprive the search of two seekers.”

“Are you emotionally blackmailing me?” Xavier demanded. _It’s a missing kid, Malach. Pull yourself together._

He was going to regret this. He was sure of it.

“Fine.” He tried not to sound grudging. “Which one’s mine?”

Kheylan didn’t smile, but he looked like he might be considering smiling at some point ever. “You will ride behind me, of course. This way.”

Kheylan led him over to an enormous black beast. “This is Shalim,” he said softly, and—Christ in high heels, he _smiled_ as the senrima lowered its head for petting. It almost knocked Xavier off his feet, the utterly unexpected brilliance of it, warm and fond and genuine. “You need not worry; he is an excellent mount. He has never let anyone fall.”

Xavier looked away before Kheylan caught him staring. “I—yeah. Sure.”

 _“Jimba de Shalim stat este,”_ Kheylan murmured lovingly, stroking Shalim’s head. The senrima was wearing a metal plate over its face, fastened under his jaw. A long metal spike, like a unicorn horn, extended from it.

“Do I want to know what this is for?” Xavier asked, touching it lightly. He was surprised to find it wasn’t cold; but then, it had to be spelled, for the comfort of the senrima. In this climate no one could wear unspelled metal, surely.

Kheylan had dipped his fingers in a small pouch and was carefully circling Shalim’s eyes in thick kohl, blacking out the colourful feather-scales ringing its eye-socket. He twisted his arms in a strange kind of shrug in response to Xavier’s question. “In case we encounter gryphons or frost dragons,” he said blithely.

 _Gryphons or frost dragons. Great. That makes me feel much better._ “I knew I shouldn’t have asked,” Xavier muttered. _And why are you putting make-up on your horse?_

Kheylan helped Xavier onto Shalim’s back. It was embarrassingly difficult to manage, but finally Xavier was sitting at the very base of the senrima’s neck, his legs hooked over its wings and the reins knotted between his hands. He was fairly sure that a rider would sit further back on a wingless horse, but that simply wasn’t an option here; Shalim’s wings were anchored the entire length of his body, leaving no room for a rider’s legs to hang down. And the senrima didn’t seem uncomfortable, as far as Xavier could tell.

Kheylan swung up behind him with graceful ease, and Xavier started a little to feel the vampire suddenly pressed so close against his back. Their legs slotted together, and Kheylan’s arms encircled Xavier’s waist as they gently took the reins from him.

With nothing else to hold, Xavier buried his hands in Shalim’s mane.

“You will not fall,” Kheylan said. He spoke softly, and Xavier wondered if he was trying to spare Xavier’s pride by preventing the other riders from listening in. “Senrima do not fly like birds. You see Shalim’s _glissre_ , the bright feathers? He weaves the winds with those, makes it bear him up and hold his riders on his back. It could not be safer.”

Mouth dry, and confused by Khyelan’s sudden kindness, Xavier only nodded.

The herd—or should that be flock?—ran one by one for the cliff’s edge. Burning chestnut, snowy white, storm-grey, and then Xavier felt Kheylan’s heels dig into Shalim’s shoulders and it was their turn, the senrima’s powerful muscles bunching beneath Xavier’s thighs as he sprang into a gallop, jewel-bright hooves clattering against the stone like thunder and Xavier’s knuckles were white in the senrima’s mane, his mind gone blizzard-white as the edge came closer and closer and _closer_ —

The _lurch_ as the powerful legs threw them into open space made him want to scream like a child: he locked his teeth and screwed his eyes shut and they were falling, _dropping_ , wind ripping at them and the pit of his stomach had dropped out and—

And Kheylan was _laughing_. It took Xavier a second to hear it over the wind, and then he felt Shalim’s wings _punch_ down, over and over and they levelled out and he opened his eyes and _Kheylan was laughing_.

“ _Tidrasté!_ ” Kheylan shouted, raising a fist to the sky, and the cries of the other riders came back to them, equally exhilarated and equally mad, Xavier decided.

 _Fucking vampires_. He had a feeling he was going to be thinking that a lot around these lunatics.

)0(

They didn’t stay in the air all that long, and not, as Xavier feared, because they crashed. Shalim and the other senrimas flew down the mountain, and within twenty minutes the land they passed over was flattening out. Soon Xavier could make out the shadow of buildings.

“Where are we?” he shouted over the rush of air.

“Amarande,” Kheylan called back. “The capital of our world!”

The sky was growing lighter, making it easier and easier to see. Faint sunlight touched marble domes and piercing spires, black and white like a chessboard, making them flash with embedded crystals and glass. As Shalim flew lower, Xavier was reminded of looking out of a plane coming into land: more and more detail became apparent, coaches and horses and figures, squares and roads lined with elegant white-barked trees. Or maybe they weren’t real, maybe they were marble or pearl or silver statues, Xavier couldn’t tell, and then Kheylan was telling him to ready himself and the small herd of senrimas were coming closer and closer to the ground—

It wasn’t quite as easy a landing as on a commercial jet, but it wasn’t as rough as Xavier had feared, either. His teeth clicked together hard as Shalim landed at a canter on a smooth runway-like street outside the city proper.

Xavier hadn’t died, so he counted it as a win.

One of the other obiri called something over to them as the senrimas stamped their hooves and settled.

“Cneajna wishes to welcome you to the immortal city,” Kheylan translated.

“Tell—” her? Him? Xavier had no idea whether Cneajna was a male or feminine name. “Say thanks for me,” he decided.

Kheylan called back, then lay his hand over Xavier’s when he made to get down. “Do not,” he said sharply. “We will not dismount here.”

Xavier blinked, but pulled his hand back without protest.

Someone must have spotted their little flight as they came in, because a crowd was gathering. The androgynous Cneajna dismounted to talk to them, one hand resting on his—her?—senrima’s reins. Shalim stamped his foot and huffed, his breath curling into steam in the cold; the snow crunched under his hoof.

Xavier let his attention drift. Unlike those in the castle, the obiri here ornamented their black clothes with flashes of colour—red and copper embroidery on the sleeves of their tunics and shirts, green ribbons lacing their knee-high boots, elaborate ear-cuffs studded with semi-precious stones. And for the first time Xavier realised that no one was wearing coats, or scarves, or gloves—even though snow lay thick on the ground. Vladishka had told him that they didn’t feel the cold, but it still hit him hard to see the reality of it.

Looking, he saw a few give him cold, suspicious glances. He tried to keep his face impassive.

Cneajna turned and said something to Kheylan, who growled a string of words back. Cneajna shrugged.

Kheylan’s shoulders tensed. “Show them the cuff Vladishka gave you,” he ordered without turning around, voice tight and angry.

Bemused, Xavier pushed his jacket sleeve up and raised his hand. The silver looked dull and lifeless in the dim light, like old iron.

A murmur ran through the crowd. The suspicious glares turned to shock, and then warmth, appreciation, relief. The two women speaking to Cneajna nodded quickly.

“You can lower your arm,” Kheylan muttered, and Xavier did so.

“What was all that about?” he asked just as quietly.

“You are a stranger here.” Kheylan said simply, with just a hint of warning that told Xavier not to push it. “And one of their children is missing. Mihai’s mothers wanted proof you could be trusted.”

 _I get that they’re wary of strangers right now. What I want to know is why my bracelet reassured them._ They’d told him it would suppress his scent, but magical deodorant shouldn’t mean so much.

But he didn’t ask.

)0(

Minutes later they were aloft again, Shalim’s powerful wings directing the winds to lift them high into the sky. Xavier’s knife and guns, apparently not protected by the bracelet’s heat-spell, chilled against his skin.

They weren’t searching the city. That was being left to its inhabitants who would, Xavier reasoned, know it better than the obiri who lived up the mountain from it in Mordecai. Instead the handful of senrimas and their riders flew long, curving sweeps over the snowfields around Amarande, miles too high for Xavier to see anything but endless stretches of white that only grew whiter as the sunlight strengthened. When his eyes began to sting and water, Kheylan handed him the pouch of kohl he’d used on Shalim before they set out—“It eases the glare of sun on snow”—and a pair of bone goggles from a pouch at his waist. The tiny slits protected his eyes from the snow-glare better than he would have expected from something so archaic, but the obiri didn’t seem to need them.

 _They must have eyes like hawks,_ Xavier thought. And also: _if they don’t need goggles, then he brought them just for me._

The day grew brighter. After roughly two hours in the air they descended for a break; Xavier ate the (cold) meat pastries they gave him and crunched crystallised honey disks between his teeth. There was a pink fruit soup that had stayed warm in its canteen, called _kiiselli_ , and water so cold he felt it in his root canals.

Also, it was more awkward to piss onto unbroken white snow than it had been at the side of an Honduras road. He could have lived without knowing that, but at least the cuff’s heat-spell meant he hadn’t frozen solid in the process.

 “So tell me: why are you guys involved?” he asked when they climbed back onto the senrimas.

“Your pardon?” Xavier couldn’t see his face, but Kheylan’s confusion was evident.

“You know.” Xavier gestured at the other senrima-riders. “You guys. From the castle. Why are the royals and the nobles helping look for this kid?”

As he had felt Kheylan’s bemusement, now he sensed the obiri’s sudden fury. “You think that we should not?” he snarled. “Do you think that Mihai does not deserve our every effort? I realise that among _your_ people, missing children are nothing to comment upon, but—”

“No no no, gods, that’s not what I meant!” Xavier protested, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “It’s just—you know, back home, I mean, the big-shots—the, um, our ‘royals’ wouldn’t care. About a missing kid. Unless it was one of theirs or something. So I was just surprised that you did. It’s not a bad thing!” he added hastily. “It’s not—I’m not disapproving. It’s a good thing. I just wondered.”

“We care about our young,” Kheylan snapped. _Even if you don’t_ , Xavier heard.

He thought that would be the end of it, but a few minutes later Kheylan added, more calmly, “We do not have enough children that we can lose even one.”

“I’m sorry?”

He heard Kheylan’s frown in his voice. “It is not your fault.”

“No, I—it’s a figure of speech. It means ‘what do you mean’?”

“Oh.” A pause. “As I said. We do not have many children. Mihai is one of four hundred in this country.”

“You _what_? In this _country_?” Xavier was sure he’d misheard. The wind must have obscured Kheylan’s words. “You have four hundred children in this _country_?”

“Slightly more,” Kheylan said simply. “Most of them come to live at Mordecai with their parents when they are born, of course, until their majority. It is safest. In other parts of Sheol the kings and queens fulfil the same role. But some—like Mihai’s mothers—prefer to raise their children in less sheltered environments.” His voice was disapproving.

 _Four hundred in this_ country _._ How many kids in the UK? A million? No, far more than that—he had no idea, but it was some huge number with a lot of zeros. Even in smaller countries it was thousands more than _four hundred_.

 _Maybe they really do live for ages_ , Xavier thought. A low birth-rate would balance out a high life expectancy... And then it hit him: _how long_ do _they live if their birth-rate is_ that low _?_

He decided he didn’t want to know. He already had enough of a headache.

They spent another three hours silently combing mountainsides, trenches, and the constant snow. There was no discussion, even when the light peaked and began to fade, but Kheylan became grimmer and grimmer as the day wore on. Hours with little conversation and nothing to contribute had dulled Xavier’s concern into stiff boredom, but now he felt his conscience pricked.

“Maybe someone else has found em?” he ventured finally.

But Kheylan just shook his head. “No. We would have been told.”

“Told—? We’re miles away from everyone, how could they have told us?”

“One of the other searchers would have mind-linked with one of us,” Kheylan said absently, his eyes focussed far below on the ground. Abruptly he straightened and tugged on the reins, and Shalim wheeled around in mid-air, huge wings rotating to turn them around.

“Did you see something?”

“No. We will return to Amarande. This is—a child would not have come so far alone,” Kheylan explained, frustrated. “And it will soon be too dark to search effectively.”

Xavier said nothing as the senrimas’ riders turned about, knowing there was nothing to say. _Poor kid. Imagine being out alone in all this..._ This was not a very hospitable country. Flat stretches of icefield cut into sheer cliffs without warning, or collapsed into abrupt, frost-blue canyons. Jagged peaks cut their way out of the ice and were filled with their own plethora of dangers, including, Xavier was willing to bet, avalanches that would sweep a child into history.

“So. Mind-links,” he said finally. “Explain that one to me?”

He half thought that Kheylan might have been glad of the distraction, so quickly did he delve into a complicated explanation of telepathy. By the time Amarande began taking shape on the horizon Xavier’s head was spinning, but some of the tension had gone out of Kheylan’s shoulders.

Or maybe Xavier was just imagining it, because it was back by the time Shalim touched down on the street.

 *

“Here.” A pair of hands gently pushed a mug of steaming _kiiselli_ into Vladishka’s grip. “You look like you could use this.”

Startled out of her reverie, Vladishka glanced up into the face of her mother’s newest consort. She might not have recognised him at all if not for the gold ring-armour covering his throat. Precious metal, but soft, Vladishka mused; it was only a symbolic protection, not real armour—a far cry from the warrior’s steel rings worn by the Dracula and her AnKi-ja-morë, when the latter could be bothered. But it was the stamp of the Dracula’s claim—Zesangre was the only one who would ever see this man’s bare throat.

“Thank you,” she said belatedly. She raised the wooden cup to her lips. Her mother had only had two _syzýgous_ when Vladishka left for Earth, which everyone agreed was very few for a Dracula, but Vladishka had known Laurențiu and Triaian almost her entire life. This newest _syzýgo_ —Viorel, his name was, someone had called him that at the welcome feast—was lovely, with his warm rose-petal eyes and the fading light picking out glints of gold and russet and copper in his waterfall of autumn-coloured hair—but she didn’t know him.

“You’re very welcome, _fiima._ ” He used the word meaning _heart-daughter_ even though he couldn’t possibly be more than a few decades older than her, if that—but his smile was so genuine that she couldn’t find it in herself to be irritated. “If you will excuse me.” He glanced past her shoulder. “Your cousin has arrived. I will attend to the seekers. Please let me know if there is more I can do to assist.”

He dipped his head—the motion making his hair sweep forward—before vanishing back to the trestle tables of food and drink he had set up for those searching for Mihai.

Vladishka frowned at his retreating back, wondering if his presence in her mother’s court meant that the Dracula was finally getting over the death of Vladishka’s father all those years ago, before turning to meet Kheylan. “Any news?”

He shook his head. She’d expected the answer, but still had to fight the urge to step into _heart-sore exhaustion_. “Nothing,” he confirmed. “I assume...?”

“No signs our end, either,” she managed. “We scoured every inch of land from Udesti to Mt. Guruduk, and _nothing_. It’s like ey disappeared.”

Her cousin’s eyes were drawn tight and tired. “We have been reacting as though ey were lost, but what if ey were taken? A kidnapper could be worlds away by now. We should alert other AnKien to the possibility—”

How could this be the same man who had smiled at her news of Earth? How could he care so much for one life, and not another? “No, Khey,” she said gently. “Mother’s sure that no strangers have come through, _or_ left. And there’s been no violence in the _mordrashün_ ,” she added when he looked about to protest.

“You might not have felt it,” he argued. “You are only AnKi-ja-morë yet, Ishka—”

“Do you think mother would have missed it?” she asked tartly. “No. Ey’s lost, not taken, and let’s be grateful for that much at least.” She took a deep breath. “I’m calling everyone in for the night. The Civatateo are going to take over until morning. If they haven’t found em by then, we’ll start over, but everyone needs to rest.” She hissed through her teeth, the only sign of frustration she would allow herself. “This is why they’re meant to go to Mordecai, sunfire burn them!”

Kheylan didn’t contradict her. Smart man.

She sighed. “You should get your riders back to Mordecai,” she told him. “And rest those poor senrimas.”

“As my AnKi-ja-morë commands,” Kheylan murmured, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

She didn’t need him to be happy, just to obey. The last thing they needed was everyone running themselves ragged.

 *

Xavier took the opportunity to stretch his legs while Kheylan and the other obiri went to talk and exchange news, walking back and forth beside the senrimas. He wondered if they’d found that kid, or if they would. Wondered why so many people cared. Would it be like this if some Peckham kid went missing? What about in the slums, where even the police barely gave a damn?

The snow wasn’t quite soaking through his boots, but it was damn well trying. Xavier sighed.

When he looked up from his shoes he saw one of the obiri walking over, carefully carrying a wooden tray. A kid, looked like, a sixteen, seventeen-year-old boy—but if Kheylan had been telling the truth this morning, then this child was probably a hundred years older than Xavier, and how creepy was that?

 _And not a boy,_ Xavier reminded himself, remembering what Kheylan had said about the genders of the children here. _Ey, em, eirs…_

He ducked back against Shalim, trying to stay out of sight so the kid could pretend not to see him. But ey walked right up to Xavier with a shy smile, ducking eirs head a little as ey proffered the tray. _“Alunpik najtha nei kusete?”_

“Uh...” Xavier’s brain flailed unhelpfully. “I’m—sorry, I don’t understand,” he offered apologetically, although the held-out tray was pretty self-explicit. But just in case he was reading things wrong, Xavier didn’t want to take it.

The kid looked up then, and comprehension dawned. “Ah, _mehjat ranla—kitaste Engleshé verl?”_

Xavier did a double-take. “Did you say—? English, yeah, I—do you speak English?”

“Little. I say—eating, for you. For searchers.” Ey offered the tray again.

This time Xavier took it. “Thanks. How do you—how do you say ‘thank you’, in your language?”

The kid blinked, then lowered eirs eyes again. _“Multumesc,_ we say,” ey said clearly, taking care to enunciate each syllable.

“In that case, muletoomescké,” Xavier tried gamely, and was rewarded with a flash of startled laughter. “Not that good, huh?”

“Very bad,” the kid agreed, grinning. “Sit, eat, you.”

There was nowhere to sit, but Xavier leaned against the wall—his jacket protected him from the ice—and tried to eat balancing the tray on one hand. The senrimas’ long reins were tied to rings set into the wall, and the kid shyly went to pet the enormous creatures as they worked on buckets of grain and water.

“Beautiful _zbor caii,”_ ey said suddenly, looking back at Xavier as ey patted the chestnut. “Yes?”

“Zabor key?” The kid laughed again, and Xavier grinned. “What’s that mean? These guys?” He gestured at the senrimas with his two-pronged fork.

“Swan horsai—horses,” ey corrected himself. “Big, strong. They bring you fast this morning, for search, yes? Before we message to Mordecai. Our Dracula, she is good, best, um, best _mâérerâgat_. I not know your word.”

“King?” Xavier offered. Then the rest of the boy’s words got through, and despite the heat from his bracelet he felt cold. “Did you say that we—that, um, the Mordecai people—we came before you sent a message? About the missing kid?” What was eirs name again? “Mihai?”

The kid looked at him like he was an idiot. “She is good _mâérerâgat_ ,” ey said again, slowly, as if Xavier might not have heard the first time. “She listens to the _mordrashün_ , yes? Always listens, listens very good. Big pain, big distress, many people, she hears in the _mordrashün_ , yes? Sends warriors to fix big pain.”

“What is—that? The, moredra thing?” Remembering Kheylan’s explanation of obiric telepathy, he tapped his forehead. “Does she hear, here? In her mind?”

But the kid shook eirs head and laid eirs palm flat on eirs heart. “Listens, hears, here. Only _mâéreregedes_ can hear _mordrashün_ , yes? Is web, the hearts of the people. _Mâéreregedes,_ they listen, take care of big pains, little pains. Care of the people.”

“Only—only kings?” Something like empathy? An empathic bond to their people? It sounded like that. It would explain why they hadn’t made the jump to democracy; why would you, if your rulers could always know when something was wrong, and, presumably, how to fix it?

 _“Mâérerâgat_ is big king. King of kings.”

 _The AnKi_ , Xavier realised. This had to be why Eteire had been so insistent that AnKien were superior to human rulers; because they had this _mordrashün_ thing, this ability to ‘hear’ when something was wrong with their people. It seemed so obvious now.

The kid must have thought so too, because ey went back to the senrimas, stroking their long necks and combing at their manes with eirs fingers, murmuring words too low for Xavier to hear. Xavier went back to work on his fish—it was coated in something that tasted like coconut but couldn’t be; where would you grow coconuts in a place like the Arctic Circle?—and had his mouth full when the kid spoke again. “The warriors, they big scare, yes?”

Xavier swallowed his mouthful. “Scary?” Well, maybe Vladishka and Kheylan _were_ a bit frightening. But “They’re just trying to find Mihai.”

The child—teenager? Or hundred-ager?—nodded slowly. “They all—” Ey made some vague gesture with eirs hands, straightening eirs spine as ey did so. _Polished_ , Xavier got from it, _and confident, self-assured._

Sure, that could be intimidating. Especially for a kid, probably. Xavier nodded, trying to be understanding. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to someone more than two years younger than him.

It must have worked, because the kid kept talking. “I not speak to them, yes? They so,” ey made the gesture again. “My mouth, it go quiet. I like the _zbor caii_ , they more gentle. You also, like _caii_ , still, quiet.”

Xavier couldn’t imagine anyone finding the beautiful but unearthly senrimas reassuring—or describing _him_ as a calming presence—but he nodded again anyway, wondering where this was going. Maybe the kid just didn’t have anyone to talk to? It couldn’t hurt to just stand here and listen, anyway.

“Mihai, we play some things,” and Xavier’s attention sharpened instantly. He tried not to tense up, not to do anything that might spook the boy and make him clam up. The kid was still staring at the chestnut senrima, studiously avoiding Xavier’s eyes. “Some places we not, uh, we forbidden go. But some suns we go there.”

_‘Some suns’—some days? Sometimes?_

“It’s okay,” Xavier said carefully, keeping his voice light, calm, idle, even as his gut tightened with expectation and hope. “You can tell me.”

 *

Vladishka heard her cousin calling for Xavier, but she was busy talking to Aveyar and didn’t pay the idiot males any attention. Not until her ears caught the sound of crunching snow behind her and she spun rapidly to see who was running at her.

She blinked and lowered her guard when she saw who it was. “Xavier. Did you need something?”

He shook his head, then hesitated when she made to turn away. “Wait a sec. I—look, there was this kid, and ey thought I was less intimidating than you guys or something, so ey started talking—”

“And?” she asked impatiently.

 _“And_ , ey said that sometimes ey and this Mihai kid went playing in some place ey called a sabrat cave or something—”

 _“Caverna de sarbatorile,”_ Aveyar corrected automatically.

“Right, that place. Has anybody looked there?”

“No,” Vladishka said slowly. “It’s forbidden, ey’d have no reason to be there… But if they’d been playing there—” It didn’t seem likely, but at this point there were few places left to look. “Tell Kheylan I want him to check.”

The corners of Xavier’s lips quirked. “It will be done,” he said grandly, almost playfully. Without another word, he jogged back to his escort and the waiting senrimas, leaving Vladishka to hash out who would be part of the night’s search parties.

 *

“Does Vladishka have new orders for us?” Kheylan demanded as Xavier crunched through the snow to Shalim.

“Yep.” Xavier took a second to look over Shalim’s saddle, then grabbed on and hauled himself up. “She wants us to go check the caverna de sarb or whatever. One of the kids said that Mihai plays there sometimes.”

“Children are forbidden from the _caverna de sarbatorile_ ,” Kheylan said instantly.

Xavier rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, I’ve heard, thanks. But we’re going to check anyway.”

“Indeed. I do not believe it can hurt.” Kheylan curled the reins over his fingers, then called sharply to the other riders—they’d been waiting on Xavier—and after a few moments’ conference there were nods on all sides.

“Very well then,” Kheylan said. “Are you fastened in? Yes?” On Xavier’s affirmative he gave Shalim his heels, and the senrimas swept into the sky.

)0(

They didn’t fly far: Xavier had barely gotten used to being up high again before they started the descent. Mordecai and Amarande were both in plain view; the city walls were only half a mile or so away as the obiri and Xavier dismounted near what looked like a cairn of smooth granite stones.

“What is this place?”

“Amarande’s _caverna de sarbatorile_ ,” Kheylan answered absently. Without ceremony he walked up to the pile of boulders and ran his hands over one. Pushing aside a layer of false lichen, he slotted his fingers into the round holes it had hidden.

Faint light shone around his fingers, and one of the boulders at the base of the mound sank silently into the ground, revealing a dark tunnel.

“Not quite what I expected,” Xavier murmured as Kheylan retrieved his fingers and gestured them inside. “But sure. Secret passageways. Why not?” After vampires, nothing could surprise him.

A few feet from the entrance the passage was lit by bioluminescent moss, carpeting the walls and ceiling and thick as sheepskin under their feet, turning the obiri’s faces—and presumably Xavier’s as well—pale blue-green. The tunnel gradually moved downwards, curving lazily like a particularly wide spiral staircase. It took a while, with the heat-spell keeping him warm, but when the frost on his jacket started to melt and his shirt began sticking to his skin Xavier realised that the air was not just warm but hot, and humid. Some of the obiri were starting to look flushed, not just overhot but ill.

Kheylan ordered a halt then. He went to each obiri and—it looked like he was throwing a net over them, but his hands were empty. There was just a glimmer of pale blue light on their skin, like silk settling over them, and a brief chill in the air—and then nothing.

He did it to himself last of all. To Xavier, he just said “Turn off your shield, or the heat will sicken you.”

Xavier pulled out his _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_. “I don’t know how,” he confessed. “I’ve only had this thing for a few hours...”

Kheylan looked annoyed, and grabbed Xavier’s wrist roughly. Xavier, startled, made to pull away before he remembered how Vladishka had turned the shield on this morning, and stilled. Sure enough, Kheylan’s thumb on the gemstone was like a breath of fresh air against Xavier’s face, the worst of the heat suddenly falling away like a cast-off skin.

“There. Now come,” Kheylan ordered, releasing him, and they continued on.

It grew hotter still, and the air started to smell not of rock and moss but damp earth and green things, like a greenhouse. Xavier was just starting to put the pieces together when the tunnel opened up onto an enormous cavern.

 _So this is where they grow the coconuts,_ he thought inanely. _Ok. Sure._

The cave was brightly lit, rows of things that could have been exotic lightbulbs or glowing crystals for all Xavier knew set into the ceiling, stretching on into infinity. The floor was thick dirt, but you could barely see it for all the greenery. Xavier knew nothing about gardening, but even he could recognise the coconut trees clustered to one side, with their smooth trunks and signature fruits—green and unripe, now. The place was wet and warm enough to be in the tropics, a complete 180 to the environment outside. _But so smart! How else could they grow anything in this climate? What_ couldn’t _they grow this way?_

“Xavier, you and I will go this way,” Kheylan said, knocking Xavier out of his intellectual reverie.

“This is your caverna thing?” Xavier asked as they followed the left-hand path. It split along the many rows of fruits, vegetables, bushes and trees; Kheylan took them between a row of something that might have been blackberries, and something vaguely banana shaped that Xavier didn’t recognise at all.

 _“Caverna de sarbatorile_ , yes. We grow all our food this way.” Kheylan didn’t seem to be _looking_ , just walking; his face was set straight ahead, not even glancing from side to side.

“What about meat?” He was curious to know how this worked, now. And he’d been thinking of questions to ask all day, in the five hours he’d had to be silent and stare at the snow.

Kheylan pointed without a word. Xavier followed his finger just in time to spot a dark pool in a gap between the vegetation. “We keep fish here. All else are above; caribou, and _oomingmak_ —how do you say, musk, muskox, I think—most wild, but some farmers keep herds. Sheep also, in the mountains.”

“Sheep?” Xavier said sceptically.

“Goat? I am not sure of the difference,” Kheylan said dismissively. “Whales and seals, near the seas, but they are easier to hunt during the summer. Many birds, but again, they are hard to find in winter.” He gestured at their surroundings. “But fruits are the most important. We store the sugar in our bones,” he tapped his arm to illustrate, “and burn it to flit. You might see it tomorrow during the hunt,” he added.

“Huh.”

They passed the opening to a room full of bright colour. Xavier peeked and saw what looked like miles of flowers, which made no sense until he spotted the bees. _Oh, right—honey. For the sugar._ The bees didn’t hum, which was unnerving, and he quickly went to catch up with Kheylan.

About two hundred yards later Kheylan abruptly stopped dead for no apparent reason. “They have found em.”

 “They have?” Xavier asked, bewildered. “Mihai?”

 “Yes,” Kheylan said absently. “I _seln_ them—they are close. Come.”

So many strange words. It would have been fine—all languages were strange before you knew them—but human languages didn’t usually include terms for inhuman magical concepts. “Seln?” he asked wryly as they jogged down the path.

 Kheylan snapped his teeth. Xavier didn’t know how to interpret that. “Like empathy,” the obiri said shortly. “I can feel the presence, emotions, wellness of other obiri if they are close. It is probably how they found Mihai.”

“Oh. Is that like the mordrash thing?”

Kheylan looked sharply at him. “Very like,” he said after a moment. “They are two names for the same thing, I suppose. The web of—of life, in a race, binding us all together. That is the _heyona_. To _seln_ someone is to sense their life force through the _heyona_ -web; one person, or a few, but only those in close proximity with oneself. But the _mordrashün_ is the ability to sense the life force of the whole web, the whole species, all at once. Although it does not confer as explicit knowledge as _selnin_ , generally.” He paused for a moment, as if considering whether to say more. His voice, when he continued, was soft. “One cannot lie through _selnin_. Your emotions, your presence—neither can be hidden from those around you. It makes us honest. Makes us—strong.”

Xavier was surprised by the reverence in the obiri’s voice. His face must have shown it, because Kheylan abruptly caught himself. “The _mordrashün_ is of the AnKien,” he continued in a much cooler tone. “It is what _makes_ them AnKien. They can sense all of the web, manipulate it—” He hesitated. “I do not feel comfortable discussing this with you,” he said suddenly.

 Xavier shrugged without breaking his stride, mildly surprised but not upset. “Then don’t,” he said simply. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want, you know. If my questions are, I don’t know, rude or something, just say so. Or don’t answer.”

 Kheylan looked surprised, but nodded once.

 The others _were_ close by. Kheylan and Xavier ducked through another round doorway, like the bee-room, and found them; Cneajna and the rest, one of them carrying a small child. Ey looked about six or seven years old—much younger than the kid by the senrimas, but what did Xavier know?—and eirs face was all red from crying. But ey must have realised ey was safe now, because ey was already asleep.

Xavier couldn’t quite bite back his grin.


	12. The Calm Before the Storm

_“Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.”—Sarah Ban Breathnach_

 

They returned to Mordecai like war heroes, only war heroes never actually got this kind of reception outside of the films; Xavier was quickly lost in the haze of celebrations and congratulations, the flurry of smiling, laughing faces. The table in the main hall groaned under the weight of strange foods and he smelled copper, copper everywhere—splashing red into goblets, chalices, in crystal decanters. There was wine, or beer, some kind of alcohol and he drank it, smooth and strong with a delicious burn to it. When someone pressed another cool silver cup into his hand he took it, grinning, elated—they’d found Mihai, everyone was happy, this was shaping up to be a proper party—and didn’t think to glance at what was in the goblet. He raised it to his lips automatically before realising, before the smell hit him like a punch and the warm, Jesus fucking Christ, the _warm_ liquid in his mouth—

He gagged, and dropped the cup—

A hand darted out of the ether to catch it, and Kheylan’s lips were against Xavier’s ear. “School your expression,” he murmured, “and when I kiss you, give me the blood.”

_When you—?!_

Before he could complete the thought Kheylan’s mouth pressed against his.

Xavier almost swallowed the blood with surprise, and again when the obiri’s hand slid into his hair, cupping Xavier’s skull as if this were _real_ , as if this were more than just—whatever this was.

Well, Xavier—Xavier could play along.

He found Kheylan’s hip and pulled him closer, thrilling at the surprised growl Kheylan made, at the silkiness of Kheylan’s tunic under his fingertips. His lips were cool and sweet from whatever he’d been drinking and Goddess, Kheylan was just the right height, just the right fit, all corded muscle under that silk—

Kheylan’s mouth opened against his, and Xavier remembered what this was about, dimly, remembered the blood—and it should have been disgusting, half pouring, half pushing the liquid from his mouth to Kheylan’s, tasting copper, tasting the obiri’s tongue against his, but it wasn’t, it really bloody (hah) wasn’t—

And then it stopped, too abruptly for Xavier’s slightly tipsy mind to catch, for half a moment. Kheylan pulled back and out of Xavier’s grip with one of those faster-than-light things obiri did, his eyes all shocky-wide and dark as the blood on his mouth. His lips were red, red, _red_ , and Xavier couldn’t tear his eyes away, wanted to lick the blood off them, the horror of a mouthful of blood already forgotten.

He reached for Kheylan again unthinkingly, and found his hand stopped, locked in place by the manacle of Kheylan’s fingers around his wrist.

“Do not,” Kheylan said fiercely, a hissed whisper through gritted teeth, “presume upon me further.”

Xavier wrenched his hand back as if he’d been burned. _You have been_ , he thought. _Buuuuurned,_ his inner child sing-songed, the way they used to at school after a sharp put-down, a rejection, and wasn’t that just what this was? “Sorry,” he muttered, swallowing the taste of copper.

Blood. _Al._ Blood all over the bathroom, dark and tacky by the time Xavier found the scene, and just like that he wanted to be sick. Gods, what was he doing, kissing someone, when Al was—Al was—

_Siav, Siavahda, and it’s okay I’m going to find—her—and we’ll talk. Figure it out._

“I came to tell you that the children would like to meet you,” Kheylan said icily. “If you would care to oblige them. They are eager, and excited, and have studied your tongue in their lessons. They would be glad of a chance to practise English on a native, I am sure.”

Children. Mordecai’s children? “Um, sure,” Xavier answered, still a little dazed, a little lost. Everything moved too fast, lately, the last few days. He could still feel the ghost of Kheylan’s body, the long lean line of him pressed up against Xavier’s front... “Lead the way. It’s probably not a great idea for me to stay here.”

“No,” Kheylan agreed, his voice still arctic, and turned away without another word, began walking through the crowd. He set Xavier’s cup on a small table as he passed it.

“Why didn’t you want me to spit it out?” Xavier asked, a little more angrily than he’d meant when he caught the obiri up. “Since you clearly didn’t enjoy—”

“Be silent!” Kheylan snapped, and it was a flashback to this morning, to the avenging-archangel thing Kheylan had going for him when he was angry, all blazing and glorious. “You know _nothing_ , and then when you would make grievous insults I must save you from the wrath you would elicit, at the expense of my pride and my _carosedreapt—_ ” He cut himself off abruptly, looking furious with himself, with Xavier, with the world. “Just—be silent until we have privacy.”

Xavier kept his mouth shut until they were out in the corridor, away from the people who would give a human a cup full of blood to drink. _“Now_ will you tell me what the fuck is your problem?”

Kheylan hissed. “You do not waste blood! If you do not want it then do not drink it, but to spit it on the ground—it is to say that your host serves poison, which is ground for clan-feud. It is _disrespect_ and—and _blasphemy_. Illianor decreed that we would drink the blood of others for our pride, and you would spit in Her face—”

Xavier held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, all right already! I’m sorry, I didn’t have a clue.” _Because you didn’t tell me_ , he didn’t say. How was he supposed to know this stuff? But he bit his tongue, because he knew things didn’t work that way, knew that not-knowing didn’t stop your blunders from hurting. How many times had some well-meaning white kid offended him, pissed him off or cut him deep, because they were too stupid to know better, too lazy to educate themselves?

 _I have to read that book Al left,_ he told himself, trying to make sure he’d remember.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated quietly, with feeling this time. “I really didn’t mean to—to put you in a spot.” He managed a grin. “Thanks for not letting me start a war.”

Kheylan’s gaze sliced like a scalpel. “You are welcome,” he said finally. Xavier hoped he wasn’t imagining the touch more warmth in the obiri’s voice. “Now come. The children would meet with you.”

Xavier hesitated a split second—he was armed still, and he had no desire to bring his guns into a room full of children. But he didn’t ask Kheylan to stop and wait so he could drop off his weapons. Not in a castle full of creatures who saw him as a walking talking cake, monsters out of humanity’s nightmares. He wasn’t willing to place all his faith on the little bracelet Vladishka had given him—or on Kheylan, for that matter. Kheylan, who had stopped him from starting a war but made no bones about disliking him, maybe even hating him. Kheylan who came from a species that viewed humans as animals.

No, Xavier was not going anywhere unarmed.

As Kheylan led him down—and down, and _down_ —a dizzying spiral staircase, he explained the rules of this little visit. “You must not ask their names, and you must not attempt to touch them uninvited. And no sudden movements. Their guards will take such a gesture as a threat.”

“Asking their names is _threatening?”_

Kheylan made a dismissive gesture. “No. But it is a request for intimacy that is improper between an adult and child. I shall introduce you to them, and them to you.”

Xavier frowned. “So I can’t ask for names, but it’s okay if you tell me them anyway?”

“Yes,” Kheylan said simply.

“Why?”

“To tell a person your name, or ask for it—that is a gift, an intimacy, a prelude to trysts or courtship.” They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Kheylan brushed his fingertips over the steel door there. A panel slid away to reveal a small glass screen, and Xavier couldn’t believe his eyes when Kheylan leaned forward, fingers now resting on another crystalline panel, to let a beam of red light scan both his eyes. “Names are precious and powerful. My people acknowledge that and treat them appropriately, that is all.”

But Xavier wasn’t listening anymore. He was watching the door scan Kheylan’s irises and check his fingerprints, not with a spell but with the kind of technology Xavier had seen on Earth plenty of times. They checked fingerprints and irises at airports, now. It was just strange, to see something so familiar. Technology used where he would have expected some kind of mana-magic.

Glyphs ran across the two screens, and Kheylan straightened, closing his eyes. The small space dimmed suddenly, and beams of red light scanned the little area, running over Kheylan and Xavier both: Xavier made sure to stand still, wondering if he would be zapped or incinerated if he didn’t.

 _“Unesd viron,”_ a mechanical voice said abruptly.

 _“Kheylan_ Drăculeşti _mor fendeh,”_ Kheylan answered, calmly and clearly.

_“Dewona unes vir.”_

Kheylan smoothly raised his left hand palm-up. A small sphere, the size of a large chestnut, began to glow there. It wasn’t as awe-inspiring as _kasadu_ had been, but there was something about it—something so impossible, done so simply and casually. It hit Xavier hard, the breadth and scope of it, the implication.

What could these people do, if they wanted to? How much bigger a light could Kheylan make? One that would burn, sear, destroy?

Xavier heard the whir of machinery, and another red light came from the ceiling, a net of garnet that scanned back and forth over Kheylan’s little ball of light. It seemed that this, too, was part of the security check, another proof required on top of the iris scan, the fingerprinting, and the probable voice print Kheylan had already provided. They took this seriously; they guarded their children more carefully than they did their food supply. Xavier marvelled. Kheylan hadn’t been kidding when he called obiri children precious.

But who could blame them, if their kids were so rare?

 _“Unes deond,”_ the computer chimed. The red beams vanished.

The door swung open by itself, revealing a long and narrow hallway. It reminded Xavier of the old medieval castles, the way they’d made the halls narrow so a small number of defenders could hold off a larger number of enemies: it was a strategy the SAS still used when necessary. More unnervingly, as he and Kheylan walked down it he spotted holes in the ceiling and walls.

 _Hot oil. Arrows._ Both could be put through those holes. _Not to mention whatever terrifying things they can dream up with their crazy mana._

They came to another door. This time Kheylan only knocked, and the panel that slid back revealed a pair of eyes, hard and wary.

_“Ordonos?”_

Kheylan murmured something, too low for Xavier to hear. _A password_ , Xavier guessed. _And my not hearing it was almost certainly deliberate._

The eyes vanished.

“We’re going to be shot now, aren’t we?” Xavier asked, when several minutes passed without any sign of the door opening.

Kheylan shot him a disapproving look. “If the guardians meant to kill us, they would not use a bow. It would be much more sensible to poison us.”

 _Poison?_ _How could they poison—_

Oh. The holes in the walls. Not for boiling oil, but poison gas. _Perfect._

The door did open after a few more minutes: smoothly, but with the loud, grinding noise of hinges begging for oil. _If it was forced open, everyone inside would know_ , Xavier thought. He was in full catalogue mode now, making a note of all of the defences the obiri had put into this place. _At least, all the obvious ones,_ he amended silently.

One of which was definitely the woman in front of him. If Kheylan really was a hundred and fifty years old, and Mihai twenty-seven, then Xavier had no idea of this woman’s age. If she’d been human he would have put her in her mid-thirties, but he was more concerned with the bladed gloves on her hands, and the piercing red gaze that neatly knifed him, wary and suspicious. He was fairly certain that he didn’t want this woman deciding he was a threat to her charges.

“Kheylan,” she said warningly, but Kheylan spoke over her.

“Xavier, show her the _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ , please.”

And just as he had in Amarande, Xavier obeyed, pushing up his sleeve to show her the silver cuff, with its white stone and the engraving of, he thought now, the Dracula-Imperial crest.

The woman relaxed visibly.

 _I have to find out what this thing is,_ Xavier thought fiercely, pulling down his sleeve as Kheylan made the introductions.

“Xavier, this is Constanta. She is a member of the Ves’ţitele—I believe it translates as ‘Vesh’dar’s Knives’—our elite warriors and child guardians,” Kheylan told him. He then turned to Constanta, and Xavier didn’t have a hope of following the resulting flurry of obiric.

But between Kheylan’s reassurances and the strange cuff, the woman was convinced; after a few moments Constanta nodded, and even smiled. “You come in,” she said graciously, stepping aside to let them through. Her accent was much thicker than Kheylan’s, and Xavier didn’t buy the gracious host act for one moment—her eyes tracked him carefully as he moved past her, and she locked the entrance behind them with a wheel that belonged on a submarine door.

Xavier took a moment to take in his surroundings. They were...different. The walls were covered in painted murals, the kind of fairytale-esque paintings you found in the children’s wards at hospitals. But these were sharp and elegant and beautiful, not blocky and clumsy, and instead of bright crayon colours they were all black and white: stylised pegasi rearing on banks of white snow that glimmered with pearl inlay; friendly-looking sea monsters swimming in black seas, their eyes and scales touched with silver; dragons and huge birds flying through mother-of-pearl stars, and everywhere little kids dancing, laughing, having adventures, with rubies and garnets where their eyes should be.

 _Well, they are_ vampire _kids._

“The children excited to meet you, are,” Constanta said, a touch warmly. Xavier couldn’t help the Yoda comparison his brain offered him. “They come now.”

She and Kheylan spoke softly while they waited. Xavier stepped closer to one of the walls, examining the pictures. They really were beautiful. He had no interest in art at all, but it was obvious that whoever had painted these had known what they were doing.

Something caught his attention, and he leaned closer, frowning. It was hard to tell, but he thought... He thought there might be a pin-prick hole, in the eyes of each painted child.

A chill ran down his spine. _Holes for more gas?_ Just in case you somehow managed to get past the entirety of the obiri upstairs, _and_ the security check, _and_ the hallway, _and_ the second door, _and_ the Ves’ţitele behind it—if you got past all that they could _still_ gas the room before you got any deeper into the apartments down here.

_These people are terrifying._

“Kheylan- _primulgar!”_

Xavier turned around to find Kheylan going to his knees on the floor, surrounded by half a dozen little children—delicate, androgynous children, whispering and giggling and stealing glances at the strange human in their midst. More kids were gathered around the room, but they were warier—older?—and not as willing to come so close to a stranger. That might be their training, or it might be because he was the focus of the hard, unyielding stares of the Ves’ţitele who had entered the room with them. Three women and three men, who had appeared silently and taken positions around the room, each of them in the body-clinging leather he’d seen on Syrelle, decked out with wicked looking knives and those bladed gloves.

_Right._

He hung back, unwilling to do anything to make himself seem a threat in the eyes of those guards. Kheylan clearly didn’t have that concern. In fact he seemed more at ease than Xavier had yet seen him, smiling and chattering easily with the kids in a soft voice. He seemed to have forgotten Xavier completely, actually, although Xavier didn’t believe it—no one this protective of their children would forget a stranger’s presence.

He couldn’t tell boys from girls, not the ones gathered around Kheylan as if he was their beloved big brother, and not the ones hanging back. They really were androgynous, and with their identical shoulder-length haircuts and genderless clothes—silky trousers and tunics, embroidered with silver thread—there were no clues as to their sexes. Even the older ones, slender as birches, with curving knives tucked into the sashes around their waists and a distrustful edge to their eyes—it was impossible to identify gender. They were individuals _—_ this one had beaded braids in their hair; this one’s eyes were indigo instead of red _—_ but with regards sex, they were indistinguishable.

“Xavier, come,” Kheylan grinned— _grinned_ —and beckoned him over. “I will introduce you.”

Warily, his eyes on the guards, Xavier obeyed. It was a little unnerving, having all eyes—all _red_ eyes—on him, especially the intent, unselfconscious gaze of the young children. But he’d once been good with littles—you almost had to be, in the foster system—and when he reached Kheylan he sat down and crossed his legs, instantly making himself smaller and less threatening to the kids gazing at him with such curiosity.

Kheylan smiled approvingly, then turned his attention back to the gaggle. Cradling a Mihai-small child on his lap, he spoke to them all in obiric, a blizzard of cruelly-sweet consonants and bitten-off vowels. Xavier could hardly tell where one word ended and the next began, but the children laughed, little giggles that made Xavier smile despite himself.

Kheylan glanced at him. “I am introducing you,” he explained.

“I got that,” Xavier agreed, just a touch wryly.

 _“Uman?”_ One of the kids pressed emself against Kheylan’s shoulder, gazing at Xavier shyly. _“Genru re zenor, primulgar?”_

 _“Adevarul_ , Ioan.” Kheylan shot a pointed look at the older ones, the ones staying close by the Ves’ţitele. _“_ _Ş_ _i poarta o drac_ _ŭ_ _lan.”_

 _Drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_. The magic word: just like Constanta, they calmed the moment they heard it, as if Kheylan had cast some kind of spell on them with it. Kheylan, either genuinely or tactfully oblivious, began naming them as they crept forward, settling themselves in a neat cross-legged ring around the two adults. “Xavier, this is Oana, and Eugen, and Ruxandre, Ecaterin, Ilie, Dragomir...”

Twenty-nine of them. They were shy, but without the suspicion they were warm and curious, eager to touch his hands and his hair. “Your skin is like caramel!” One little one exclaimed, in clear, perfect English, eir soft little voice full of awe and delight as ey stroked his hands with eir fingertips. “And why is your hair so short?”

“Luminita,” Kheylan said sternly, but with a smile touching his lips, “We do not interrogate our guests, _nu ven ana_?”

Chastened, Luminita’s small, delicate face gazed up at Xavier with a solemnity that was just adorable. “Apologies, guest.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart.” The epithet tripped from his tongue without permission, and the moment he realised what he’d said he felt a vice around his heart. _The last time I said that was to Al._ “You...you can ask whatever you like. I don’t mind questions.” He touched his hair. “My hair is short because I’m a soldier, and long hair would get in the way when I’m fighting.”

“Like the Guardi?” someone—Xavier thought it might be Eugen—asked.

“Just like,” Kheylan agreed approvingly.

“But the Civatateo and Ves’ţitele have long hair, and they are soldiers,” one of the older children argued. Ecaterin? “Do humans need to cut their hair short to fight?”

Xavier met the speaker’s eyes solemnly. “Yes,” he said seriously. “If my hair was longer, I would trip over it all the time.”

The child blinked, bemused, and Kheylan intervened. “Long hair _is_ a disadvantage in battle, ’Rin. That is why the Guardi keep theirs short. The Civatateo and Ves’ţitele wear theirs long to intimidate their opponents.”

“Because they are the best!” Luminita crowed, bright grin showing off tiny baby fangs. “Is it not so, Kheylan- _primulgar?”_

“Just so. Their braids say, _We are so good you cannot defeat us, even if we give you an advantage._ ” Kheylan grinned then, the expression almost a smirk and surprisingly, viciously sexy. “What do we call this?”

 _“Inigrev,”_ one of the younger ones said promptly.

“And what is that in English?”

They frowned. A few of the older ones conferred; the younger ones pouted and bit their lips, clearly puzzled.

“ ‘Heart strike’?” Dragomir suggested hesitantly, after a few minutes had passed.

“Just so.” Dragomir beamed under Kheylan’s smile.

 _“Primulgar!”_ Ecaterin protested. “We know this! May we ask questions whose answers we do not know?”

Xavier laughed. He couldn’t help himself, even when the whole room looked at him with unabashed surprise. “Yeah, Kheylan, quit being a teacher. Let them poke the strange zoo animal already.”

Kheylan’s expression clearly said he hadn’t understood a word of that, but Luminita giggled and dropped emself into Xavier’s lap. “I first,” ey declared, oblivious to how the gathered adults tensed.

Xavier grinned. “Sure thing, sweetheart. As long as I can ask you some too.”

“Agreed.” Ey pushed at Xavier’s sleeves, baring his skin while he watched, amused. All eyes were on eir, but ey either didn’t notice or ignored them. Eir small hands looked like those of a paper doll on his arm. “Are all humans your colour?”

*

Kheylan had claimed they wanted to know the man who had rescued Mihai, but as Luminita’s bravery opened the door for a whole storm of questions from all sides—did humans _really_ not have mana, and what did they eat, what was Earth like, was it true there were no pegasi or dragons there?—Xavier realised it wasn’t really about that at all. He was a novelty, maybe the first new person they had seen since they came to live in Mordecai—it was no surprise that they were so eager to learn everything they could.

Strangely, the realisation didn’t piss him off. He’d been a novelty so often on Earth, the only dark-skinned kid in his Catholic foster home, one of a rare handful at most of his schools—but this was different, somehow. It wasn’t about his skin colour, or the second-hand clothes, or the pentacle he wore instead of the crosses his schoolmates had displayed so fucking smugly. These kids wanted to know about the world—worlds—outside of their closely guarded apartments. They wanted to know what _he_ knew.

He felt sorry for them, actually. They were so damn eager, so damn interested. It seemed unfair to lock them up like this.

He answered all the questions that he could, noting that they steered well clear of anything personal—they demanded his knowledge but not his experiences, even though they lapped them up when he offered them.

And in return, they showed him _their_ world. Under the watchful eyes of the Ves’ţitele, and with Luminita proudly holding his hand, they led him through their underground world. It was like a whole nother castle beneath the one above their heads: they led him around the gleaming kitchens, all granite and stainless steel, and the library, decorated with more of the black-and-white fairytale murals.

“How do you have windows down here?”

“Not windows,” Ilie told him as the kids all laughed. “Is _quarziune_ screen, yes?”

Xavier carefully placed his hand on it—and sure enough, the snowy vista rippled around his touch. He felt cool crystal beneath his fingers, before they were tugging him away to the playroom, with its futuristic, magical toys.

“Play with me, Xavier- _ocrotnoare_ ,” Luminita begged.

Xavier frowned. “Why do you call me that?”

“Because that is your name!”

Xavier grinned. “No, the other bit—ocrot thing?”

“ _Ocrotnoare_?”

“Yeah, that.”

Luminita pointed at his wrist, where the _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ hid under his sleeve. “Because you wear a _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ ,” ey said, rolling eir garnet eyes. If ey’d been human ey would have said _duh!_ “Now play!” ey ordered, and tossed a handful of marbles into the air—where they lit up like stars, and flew out over the room, to the delighted cheers of eir friends. “You are on my team!”

“You really don’t genderize them at all, do you?” Xavier murmured to Kheylan, in one of the rare chances he had to speak to the other man. The children were flitting back and forth across the room, turned to blurs as they moved in some complicated pattern to do with the marbles floating above their heads. “I didn’t think about it before, but it makes such a difference. It’s crazy.”

Kheylan frowned at him. “It is perfectly sensible. How can they know who, or what, they are at this age? All civilised races allow their young this time to develop. When they are older, they will choose their gender and their adult name, and if their bodies do not fit their hearts, their bodies will be changed. It is a simple thing.”

“Changed?”

“As mine was,” Kheylan said blithely. “It did not match my heart, so the Dracula arranged for arkadian biomages to change it. The process was very quick; a matter of hours. Now even my chromosomes are male, just as they should be.”

There was a stone in Xavier’s throat, and he didn’t know how to chisel it into words. He was not given the chance; before he could ask any more questions, the game was over and he was being tugged along to see the children’s classroom.

After the revelation of the security checks and the windows, it almost didn’t surprise him to find more semi-familiar tech to hand there.

“We don’t have mana on Earth,” Xavier told the littles absently, picking up one of the tablets from the desks. It was sleek and black and lit up when he touched it, presenting a multitude of coloured buttons and options. “But we have things like this.”

Their eyes lit up with interest at that. “We also!” Ilie exclaimed, which was self-evident but that was okay. “We have _piké_ — _mulnu_ —” Ey turned to the others appealingly.

“Little,” Oana whispered, eyes on the ground.

Xavier looked up from examining the tablet to smile at em. Ey smiled back, tentatively, then tried to duck behind eir short hair.

“Yes, little, we have little mana,” Ilie said. “We build with our hands what others mana, it is so.”

Xavier paused, and looked at the tablet with new eyes. “Really? You—obiri don’t have mana?” But what about Vladishka and Kheylan? He’d watched both of them work with mana, things no human could do.

Luminita smacked his leg. “No! Foolish _ocrotnoare!”_ ey scolded, so seriously that Xavier had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. _“Everyone_ has mana. But most obiri only have a _little_ mana, is it not so?”

“It is so,” the others agreed.

“Except Oana,” Eugen pointed out. Oana looked as if ey wished ey could disappear as all eyes turned to eir.

“And the _primulgar_ _,_ _”_ Ruxandre said hurriedly. “He is a mage also.”

“You mean Kheylan?” Xavier glanced over his shoulder where Kheylan was talking with some of the children’s guardians.

“Just so,” Ruxandre nodded.

Xavier carefully put the tablet down, then crouched low so he was of a height with Luminita. He’d quickly noticed how happy ey was to answer his questions, and ey preened with the attention. “So what does _primulgar_ mean?”

“First guardian,” Luminita said promptly.

Xavier frowned. “Guardian of what?”

They all laughed. “Foolish _ocrotnoare!”_ Luminita giggled. “Guardian of _us!”_

“Of you?”

“Of _all_ us,” Dragomir corrected. “All children in Sheol.”

“The _primulgar_ speaks for us in council,” Ruxandre explained. “He checks each new law to see how it affects us. He makes the places where we live safe.”

“In war and famine he makes sure we are well,” Eugen added.

 _“Primulgar lan ultymé pic_ _ă_ _tar_ _ă_ _sânge de,”_ Oana said softly. Eir quiet voice was reverent, as if ey was quoting something holy, and the others all hushed for a moment, solemn.

“What does that mean?” Xavier asked, just as softly.

They exchanged glances. “Something like, ‘first guardian to the last blood,’” Dragomir said carefully.

“The _primulgar_ would die for us,” Luminita said simply. As if it were obvious.

 _To the last blood._ There was something tight in his throat. Xavier straightened and glanced around the room. “So,” he said lightly, “this is where you learn English?”

There was even a garden down here, a smaller version of the _caverna_ , brightly lit and filled with trees and flowers of all descriptions.

“Come, Xavier!” the kids called, laughing as they flit back and forth through the trees, silver-edged shadows blurring against the green. “Look, look!”

Xavier jogged after them obediently, surprised by how much fun he was having. He felt relaxed for the first time since he’d found Al on the bathroom floor—“What am I looking at?”

Luminita pointed up into one of the trees. “Look!”

Oana scampered up into the branches while Xavier was still peering into the green shadows, trying to see what he was supposed to be looking at. Oana vanished into the foliage, but wasn’t gone for long; before the Ves’ţitele could do more than take a few steps closer ey was descending again, with something shimmering blue and green wrapped around eir arm.

Xavier crouched down as the kids crowded around, oohing and ahhing over Oana’s find; the kid was beaming proudly as ey extended eir wrist to Xavier, showing off what he thought at first was a piece of jewellery.

But no. “What _is_ that?”

“A sirena,” Luminita chirped, reaching out to stroke the thing’s feathers with eir fingertips. “They are beautiful, is it not so?”

The creature was certainly gorgeous, but utterly alien: it looked like a snake, but it was covered in silky feathers that gleamed like jewels. The only thing Xavier had to compare it to were the Aztec myths of Quetzalcoatl, some god who’d sometimes appeared a giant _flying_ feathered serpent, but he didn’t know much about that. “You guys have lots of these down here?”

Ilie nodded shyly, and Luminita piped up helpfully. “They are _seradin_ —”

“Descended from,” Kheylan corrected, walking up to them, and Luminita nodded, “Yes, yes, _descended from_ , from Vala!”

“Really?” Xavier looked up at Oana’s face. “Can I touch it?” he asked gently.

Oana nodded, and he smoothed his fingers down the serpent’s silky back. They were definitely feathers, not some kind of mutated scale. Xavier grinned, unable to help himself. This was _incredible._

“Vala was the sirena Morsean- _mâérerâgat_ gave to his mother, Iva- _regimaré,”_ Luminita lectured pompously. “Many, many generations gone.” Ey looked up at Kheylan. “Is it not so, _primulgar?”_

“Just so,” Kheylan murmured. Xavier glanced up, and couldn’t decipher the expression on the man’s face.

Dragomir tugged on Kheylan’s sleeve. _“Primulgar_ , Morsean- _mâérerâgat_ was your _multata_ , yes?”

“Grandfather,” Kheylan corrected absently. “Just so, Dragomir.” He blinked, and looked about at the children. “But your parents will be here soon, and I think it is time I took Xavier back upstairs.”

Protests came from all sides.

And cut off instantly when Kheylan raised his hand, palm-out, and spoke rapidly in obiric. Xavier didn’t even try to follow it this time, but it seemed clear enough, from the children’s woebegone expressions.

“Will you come back?” Luminita asked as Xavier got to his feet. Ey didn’t seem very hopeful.

Xavier glanced at Kheylan’s expressionless features. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But if I can, I will.”

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t satisfy eir, but ey didn’t protest, just hugged him fiercely.

Touched, and a little sad himself—he knew, without words, that going back upstairs meant going back to where things were complicated—he carefully hugged eir back. Ey felt so delicate, as if ey were made of porcelain.

The others didn’t press for hugs, just waved as Kheylan escorted him away, back past the guards and the doors and the disturbing hallway.

“Thank you for obliging them,” Kheylan said suddenly, on the long trek up the stairs. “I understand that it was an imposition. But they dearly wished to meet you.”

“Hey, no thanks required. They’re great kids, I had fun.” Xavier considered his words carefully, remembering how Kheylan had gotten the wrong idea before, then said, “It’s amazing, what you guys have done here. Protecting them like that.”

Kheylan’s lips curved into something soft. “They are everything,” he said simply. “There is nothing more important than them.”

An utterly unexpected lump formed in his throat, and Xavier had to look away. It had been years since he’d angsted about his childhood, but something about the thread of genuine warmth in Kheylan’s voice made him remember, and resent what he’d had to go through. Some deeply buried part of himself ached for the easy laughter and innocence of Luminita and Eugen and all the rest.

_All right, emo moment over. Move on, Malach._

“Do you wish to return to the celebration?” Kheylan asked, when they had reached the main part of the castle again. “Or I can bring you something to eat in your rooms, if you would prefer.”

“That would be great,” Xavier said fervently. _Blood in his mouth, and that kiss_... “I don’t think I’m up for a party.”

Kheylan hummed, something that might have been agreement, and the two of them continued on in silence. But not, Xavier thought—not a _bad_ silence. Not something tense. It wasn’t exactly companionable, either, but it was—it was hopeful. Like maybe they could work together, as if Xavier had maybe managed to bypass whatever hate-on Kheylan had been feeling this morning.

“You should try to memorise the floor here,” Kheylan said out of nowhere, pointing at the irregular pattern of the computer-hologram tiles. Red and white, a jumbled mass of it. “If you become lost, the pattern will guide you to your rooms.”

Xavier frowned at the floor. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to memorise any of it,” he admitted. But at least he knew now how the obiri found their way around in here when every other aspect of the hallways were identical.

They walked in silence, giving Xavier too much time to tie his mind in knots. He couldn’t get Kheylan’s revelation out of his head, the blithe way the man had spoken, as if changing genders was of less consequence than changing clothes. But it didn’t matter how many glances he stole at the vampire; there was nothing feminine about Kheylan. Nothing. Not that all women were stereotypically feminine—there were plenty of women in Xavier’s platoon with the SAS who had been only too happy to disabuse him of any lingering prejudices regarding gender roles—but you could tell the campest man from even the butchest woman from behind, in the dark, just from the way they moved. And Kheylan did not move like a woman, not even the obiri women like Vladishka and the Dracula and Syrelle.

Which meant that it hadn’t really been changing genders at all, only correcting a flawed body. Because Kheylan had, thus, _always_ been a man, and there had been no change on that front.

And it wouldn’t matter at all, except that it made cold sickness tighten in his gut when he thought of Siavahda-Al. Because Al hadn’t been traditionally transgender but that might not matter, not when it meant that Al had always been a woman, for every kiss and touch and tear and laugh. And Xavier didn’t know how to reconcile that, didn’t know if he could, if he should, or if it could ever end well.

By the time Kheylan stopped, presenting the door to his room, Xavier could feel the beginnings of a headache.

“I will arrange for a meal,” Kheylan announced.

“Thanks.”

And then—it was just like the first time. It was as if they replayed the _exact_ _same_ scene and just changed the script: Xavier went to go inside, his jacket shifted, and Kheylan—

Kheylan grabbed Xavier’s wrist like a vice and wrenched him around.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Xavier snapped, grunting as his back hit the wall. “The hell’s your problem?”

And then his breath caught in his throat, because the whole glorious archangel thing Kheylan had done this morning? The terrifyingly-beautiful, nearly-knocked-Xavier-on-his-ass thing?

He was doing it again.

“You brought _guns_ into the children’s sanctuary?!” he snarled.

It took Xavier a second to process the words, and to understand.

Kheylan was gorgeous, yes. He was also _furious._

Guns. His guns. Wait, yes, Xavier had brought them on the search for Mihai and hadn’t put them away before meeting the kids. Hadn’t dared to, because beneath the veneer of silken clothes and ritualised manners Kheylan was _this._ “Yes?”

The sound that came out of Kheylan was not human. It wasn’t even a snarl; it was the bigger, badder, prison-hardened older cousin of a snarl. No, try again: it was the _ancestor_ of a snarl, as far from it as a sabre-toothed tiger was from a housecat. Primordial and fucking _vicious_ and a brutal, chilling reminder that this man w _asn’t human._

It wasn’t sexy. It was terrifying.

Xavier twisted and rammed his knee into Kheylan’s crotch, praying that obiri didn’t have armoured dicks or something. They evidently didn’t, because although Kheylan didn’t make a sound Xavier knew that face, the unmistakable expression of a man kicked in the balls, and he jerked back sharply, let go of Xavier’s wrist.

The adrenalin was hitting Xavier’s system; his muscles weren’t trembling but they felt like they were. “You ever lay a hand on me again,” he said, forcing the worlds to come out measured and calm, “and I will fucking break it.”

Kheylan hissed through his teeth, and it might have been pain or it might have been anger: Xavier didn’t know and he didn’t care. He kept his face impassive to hide how hard it was to turn his back on Kheylan, went into his room, and slammed the door behind him.


	13. Betrayals

_“An increase in light gives an increase in darkness.”—Sam Francis_

 

“Parry! Strike! Duck! Parry!”

Zyvian walked up and down the line, watching the two dozen new recruits closely as they did their best to obey, clumsy with growth-spurts and the unfamiliar weight of the lead-cored practice swords. Eleven boys, thirteen girls, and eight _oset_ from all over the planet, they were a motley mix of colours, shapes and sizes: tall and springy, short and compact, graceful and plump; muscled from farm chores or sharp-eyed from balancing household accounts; ivory, amber, olive, snowy white (and flushed in the heat), copper, and a few as blue-black as Zyvian. But while four shared her skin colour, none of them had the same metallic gold rudra-roisen tattooed on their faces.

Ah, well. They were all young yet. Their roisen would blossom—and in the meantime, at least none of them had been stupid enough to keep their piercings in.

Zyvian stopped beside a girl with peppercorn curls screwed tight to her skull to correct her stance. She grasped her mistake quickly and nodded, the bright green tattooed around her eyes flashing emerald calligraphy in the sunlight.

Returning to walking up and down, Zyvian paused as she _ilnaid_ a light flutter of mana, like soft cloth whisking over her skin. None of the students seemed to sense it, but that didn’t mean anything; aside from the one girl, none of them bore anything darker than lapis. If the spell was as subtle as it had felt, then there was a good chance the students hadn’t the power to detect it.

The gold roses tattooed on her face—her roisen, etched with spelled inks, one around each eye—turned from buds to blossoms as she reached out with her mana, looking for that flutter.

She found it easily. It was Siavahda, and she wasn’t trying to disguise her spell; Zyvian felt wards, protective curses of the highest order, wrapped around Siav’s body somewhere in the palace while her mind wandered. Literally—her awareness was flung out like a shimmering net over the city, gently combing through the surface thoughts of all those within her reach.

What was she looking for?

A picture flashed through Zyvian’s mind, carried on the edge of Siav’s spell, and it took a moment before she understood it. A dragonlet, one of the miniature dragons that some noblewomen liked to keep as pets.

Did Siav want a new pet? That seemed unlikely.

Abruptly Zyvian felt someone call her, and she turned inward. There were spells to communicate telepathically but they were difficult and draining; usually people just formed permanent mind-links with friends and family. Like taut silk threads, they could be plucked or tugged to alert the person at the other end that they were wanted—and once acknowledged, the two could talk as easily as if they were face to face, no matter the distance between them.

It was Enandir. _*Eloi?*_

 _*Zyvian.*_ Her adoptive father sounded calm, but undercurrents of quiet anger wove in and out of his words like thin streams of magma beneath the earth. _*The Emperor is here.*_

 _*What? Why?*_ Distractedly, Zyvian ordered the students to put away their swords and clean up.

 _*I don’t know_. _*_ And that...that was not good; that meant the Emperor was throwing his weight around and ignoring the strict bounds of kern-rois courtesy. _*But I want you here. Siavahda will need you.*_

_*Of course.*_

No more needed to be said, and the touch of her _eloi_ ’s mind vanished.

*

Emperor Alumit, Beloved of Zysainae-Enyo, ruler of the Ixis Empire, Tiamat of the Twenty-Six Mountains and Siavahda’s father, was waiting in the throne room when Zyvian reached it. Specifically, he was standing on the throne’s dais. Zyvian’s eyes—long ago stained gold by the mana in her roisen—narrowed. Worse, the Emperor had brought a contingent of arkadians with him, slim and golden and talking amongst themselves, pointedly ignoring the olive and ebony kern-rois gathered near the doors and shadows. The tension was as smothering as the heat in a sauna, not least because the arkadians had brought a handful of their men with them.

Anger flushed Zyvian’s roisen bright, hot gold, making the rose petals uncurl and stretch, and she _ilnaid_ that hers weren’t the only ones. Quake, she _saw_ it: the room was full of light, as if a stray sunbeam had lit up a treasure trove of jewels. Roisen of amber, emerald, ruby, lapis lazuli, burned like flames. Her _eloi_ ’s face, marked with the golden rudra rank like her own, was alight and burning where the man stood unobtrusively in a corner.

And then a ripple ran through the _heyona_ —the metaphysical connection between all members of a people but most especially between AnKi and kye-ah, Protector and protected, the bond that had not so much as twitched when the Emperor arrived—and they all turned like flowers to the sun as Siavahda entered the room.

The silence didn’t last long: Aivorn had barely walked in behind her before the arkadians were murmuring to each other behind fingers melted and fused into fans of long, stiff feathers. Zyvian had no trouble discerning the words, which meant that Siavahda didn’t either: how dare she come before them with her skin olive instead of gold, her hair tawny red and hanging to her shoulders in silky dreadlocks? With her face tattooed and hung with dozens of golden rings, clicking and clinking softly with each step? Where was her _skalan?_ What was she _wearing?_

Zyvian didn’t see the problem. Siav wasn’t beautiful, not as kern-rois saw things and certainly not from the arkadian point of view—not that Zyvian would ever say that where Aivorn could hear her—but she had presence, and an eye for detail. This season the plates of material that made up kern-rois clothes were stone, and the twenty-eight puzzle pieces that wrapped Siav in trousers and shirt—smaller and hinged at her joints—were jade and mother-of-pearl, echoing the hall’s colours. Where the arkadians looked like interlopers in their garnet-reds and dusky ambers, she looked like she belonged in the room.

“Father.” She drew to a halt at the foot of the platform and addressed him with a voice like cooled wine. Zyvian felt a surge of pride.

“Siavahda.” Alumit smiled. He was another interloper, Zyvian thought—a nine _se_ tall pillar of red and gold scales, a dragon walking on two legs. He clashed with the room. And he must have realised it, because abruptly the scales and height melted away, leaving just his wings, and a tail poking from beneath a loose cotton _tas_. “Or should I call you Kalyia?”

Her kern-rois name. “Siav is fine,” the AnKi-ja-morë—but Kern-Rois’ AnKi, already, now and forever—answered coldly. “Why are you here?” Her eyes shone like opals, the chinta-roisen around them glittering like ice. “Why are _they_ here?” She gestured to the arkadian courtiers.

Zyvian crossed the floor to stand beside her twin, and didn’t look away when the Emperor flicked a glance at her. Alumit broke first.

“This concerns them,” the Emperor said. “Rekeishan is missing.”

Standing so close to her, Zyvian felt Siav’s reaction through the _heyona_ : not the shock Zyvian expected, but resignation. _She_ felt shocked; had Siav expected this? Seen it in a vision?

She couldn’t have. She would have said something, warned Rek. Zé was her cousin, her adopted sibling...

“You must return home at once,” Alumit was saying, either not noticing or ignoring how Aivorn stiffened at the suggestion. “The arkadian AnKi-al-it—your _cousin_ —is missing. Zé had no reason to leave Sarakei, certainly none to go beyond Tivona, and would have left a message if zé had: therefore zé has probably been taken. You may also be a target.”

Enandir was suddenly at Siav’s right hand. “Lord,” he said, a not-so-gentle rebuke hovering behind his teeth, “Iriel has never been breached. Illianor herself blessed the castle’s foundations. And after so many millennia of being without an AnKi, there is no rois alive who would allow any harm to come to our AnKi-ja-morë.”

Zyvian suppressed a smile. _Lord_ , not _Emperor_. Not _your_ daughter, but _our_ AnKi-ja-morë. Subtle reminders that Alumit had next to no authority here, and couldn’t order Siav anywhere.

Alumit dismissed this with a flick of his hand. “They say the same all over Duranki, Enandir. No, Siavahda, I must insist.” He held his hand out to her. “Come. The court will move to Zaruth until Rekeishan is returned to us.”

**_NO_ ** _._

The intense wave of refusal/rejection/denial punched through the kern-rois _heyona_ ; the kern-rois _selned_ the negative reaction of those around them and magnified it until the web of life and emotion hummed with it, vibrating with tension and anger. _No_. Zaruth was in Azrath—the one part of the Empire where Siavahda was subject to her father, the one place where they would obey Alumit over her.

“No.” Aivorn said coldly, silvery kaustubh-roisen burning dangerously bright. It was his responsibility, as the strongest roisen in the room but for Siav, to speak for them all, to channel the kern-rois’ response so they wouldn’t go for their weapons. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Alumit turned enraged eyes on him, but Siav spoke first, skilfully sending pulses of calm through the _mordrashün_ as she did so. “I can’t. Vladishka and Eteire will be arriving soon; I told them to meet me here.”

Alumit was not Zyvian’s AnKi, had no kern-rois blood, so Zyvian _selned_ nothing from him. But she saw fear flit across the Emperor’s face.

 _No wonder._ Who would want to face Vladishka when she learned that her _nejika_ was missing? If she didn’t know already.

Siav shook her head decisively. “No. I will stay here,” she repeated coolly. _“You_ may go where you wish.”

“Not without you,” Alumit said firmly. “If you would only—”

What happened next was utterly unexpected: heat washed over Zyvian, as if she were standing beside a bonfire, and she saw ghosts; she saw the Emperor clutching a black and violet knife to Siavahda’s neck, saw him plunge it into her throat—

And then the vision was gone. Alumit’s hands were at his sides and light was fading from Siavahda’s eyes, but she had seen, Zyvian had _seen it_ , Siav’s vision had gone out through the _mordrashün_ and that shouldn’t have been possible.

Zyvian’s throat tightened. It could only have happened if the lines between Siav’s mana and her psyche were breaking down—

But there was no time to think about that: they had _all_ seen it, kern-rois and arkadians alike, and now the room exploded—voices raised, roisen burning, blades being drawn, rois and ’kadians turning on each other—

Zyvian _selned_ that Aivorn had Siav safe and reached for her birth-gift, threw her arms up and tossed lightning at the high ceiling.

The loud snap and snarl of it silenced the courtiers.

“Aivorn. Zyvian.”

Siavahda’s voice was icy rage. “AnKi-ja-morë?” Zyvian asked warily.

“Escort my father to the nearest portal and throw him into it. I don’t care where he ends up.”

Zyvian _selned_ Aivorn’s smirk, the mirror of her own. “At once,” Aivorn purred.

“How dare you!” Alumit’s face twisted with disbelief and anger as the twins moved to take his arms. He went _dakro_ the moment they touched him, red and gold scales unfolding over his skin, becoming larger and taller with the change. It didn’t matter, Zyvian thought grimly. They would still be able to move him. “What is the meaning of this? I am trying to protect you!”

Siavahda snarled back at him. “You are trying to hand me over to Daeron, the way you did my _osethor!”_ she hissed, and if the room had been quiet before, now the silence was deafening. That she had called Rekeishan her sibling rather than her cousin was the smallest part of it. “And if I did not Know that there is a fate in store for you worse than anything I could provide, I would kill you myself! Now _get out of my kingdom!”_

Only being so close to their AnKi gave them any warning. Zyvian—and Aivorn, she guessed— _selned_ Siav’s intentions through the _heyona_ and ducked, letting go of Alumit as Siavahda’s voice became a roar, a whirlwind tearing out of her mouth and smashing into the man who called himself her father.

Alumit didn’t fight them when Zyvian and her brother picked him up. His wings angled in shock, and he went quietly as they led him from the throne room.

“And you!” She heard Siavahda shout behind them. “I want every last stone-wombed arkadian out of here!” 

 )0(

Enandir stepped towards Siav as the arkadians hesitantly followed their king from the room. Both the AnKi-ja-morë and the _kucandrin_ ignored their whispers and confused, frightened glances.

“Siavahda?” he asked quietly. She was shaking.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she whispered, and her eyes were white as she passed out.


	14. The Hunt (Part One)

_“In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”—Charlie Brown_

 

Two dozen obiri raced across the tundra on bare feet, ghosts in fluttering white silks and caribou-fur hoods. In the rapidly dying light neither they nor the wolves running alongside them made a sound.

The wind shifted, and as one the hunting party swung west, following the smell of prey. Elsewhere on the continent clans tended herds of caribou, pegasi and musk ox for everything from blood to glue and clothing, but here in Wallachia they hunted what humans would call polar bears.

Crouched low and running—but not flitting—swiftly, Vladishka directed the party to separate with a sharp gesture, and with the synchronised motion of a flock of birds they obeyed. Those with violet eyes and dark or black skin split off from the main group to follow her cousin Kheylan left and away. One moment they were running, real and visible and alive; the next, they transformed, flesh and blood becoming insubstantial shadow, nightmarish and sinister, to vanish into the twilight.

No one needed to speak. Wallachia’s nobility had hunted together a thousand thousand times, and even if they hadn’t, as members of the same race they could _seln_ each other—sense each other’s presences, something of their emotions and intentions. Lean and deceptively slender, they could keep this pace up for hours, but today it wasn’t necessary. Only a quarter jar-span later—half an hour by Earth’s clocks—Vladishka’s sharp eyes picked out the shape of two polar bears against the horizon. It was unusual to see more than one bear together, but after yesterday she was starving and grateful for the promise of extra blood.

Without sweat glands or pores, obiri didn’t have much scent, and camouflaged against the snow the bears had no idea they were coming. They could only smell the wolves—and the polar bears of Sheol were four times as large as those of Earth. They had nothing to fear from wild wolves, who were smart enough to look for easier prey. But the Mordecai pack were half-tame, smart and wily, trained to work with their obiri masters to take down animals they could never kill in the wild: they attacked the unwary bears en masse.

 _“Tejes!”_ Vladishka shouted, and Kheylan’s party burst out of the ground, snarling and screaming like wild things, shadows made manifest and whirlwinding white blurs that cut the bears off from each other, leaving one for Vladishka and her group, dancing in and out among the wolves. Vladishka caught sight of Kheylan’s eyes, wide and bright with blood-hunger, and then she was snapping out the _mokia_ glove-claws and going for the throat.

On the surface, it was chaos; beneath was a systemic series of established moves and patterns, as elaborate and understood as a court dance. The bears roared, slashing out with black-padded claws of their own; the wolves snapped and snarled, their teeth trying to find purchase through the bears’ thick fur; Vladishka and her hunters shrieked and screamed at the tops of their lungs to unnerve the animals, like banshees, like ghosts in truth. Vengeful, angry ghosts that would not leave without claiming death.

And they did. First one bear fell, and then the other, two neat bladed blows to the carotid artery. The two obiri who claimed the kill-blows set their mouths over the wounds before the bears hit the ground, and as the blood rushed hot and rusty down her throat Vladishka had never been gladder for the tradition. Almost as soon as it hit her stomach new energy burned through her, a thousand times more intense and fulfilling than coffee or cocaine, and reaching deeper.

She gulped hungrily, then ruthlessly leashed her greed and straightened up, licking the last drops from her lips.

At once the gathered obiri got to work draining the bears. A handful kept the wolves away from the meat while others used scythe-like blades to clear small patches of fur. Most of the hunters had drawstring pouches at their waists, and these now revealed small crystal taps whose long, sharp ends were hammered into the bear-flesh. In other worlds they used something similar to extract unrefined syrup from maple trees, but here Vladishka and the others positioned leather-covered steel bottles under the taps to collect gouts of warm blood. The smell made Vladishka’s fangs ache even though she’d just fed, and she saw rigidly controlled hunger in the faces and stances of the others.

With their quick efficiency it wasn’t long before they were done. Half of them stayed behind to guard the meat until others could come with sleds to cart the bears to Mordecai, and the rest began to head back. Mordecai was a black smudge on the horizon, but the cliff where the rest of the hunting party was waiting was only half a mile off, and as they walked Vladishka caught Kheylan staring up at it with barely veiled anger.

“If you didn’t want him to come, all you had to do was stay at home,” Vladishka pointed out. The two of them were walking ahead of the main group, taking point in case of attack—although it would be nearly impossible to pull an ambush in such flat, white plains.

Kheylan looked at her. “I don’t want him here, Vee,” he said quietly. Quiet, angry, painful. “He took guns into the sanctuary. _Guns_.” He paused. “I don’t want him up there standing with my family. I don’t want him in my home, and I don’t want to be his sunfire-burned escort. How could you do that to me?”

The fresh blood had helped, but she was still too tired from the last few days to deal with this. “They were my aunt and uncle too, Khey.”

“But not your parents!” Anguish and anger. _“Your_ father died defending you and the other children, doing something worthwhile. Both my parents were cut down by the monsters they were trying to protect from their own stupidity!”

“And do you think your mother would be happy, knowing her son fights against everything she stood for?” Vladishka asked, keeping her voice level. “Would your father be proud of you for preaching hate, when he spent his whole life working against it?”

The look he gave her punched guilt into her stomach, but she didn’t stop. “He’s the last one, Khey. He’s your last chance to see what your parents saw. So stop whining about it and start looking for it already, before you end up like Daeron.”

Without waiting for a response, she flit forward. The energy from the blood was better than any amount of sugar, and she practically soared over the snow, leaving Kheylan, and the weight he carried, far behind.

 )0(

Xavier fingered the sheath of his FS knife at his right hip and watched the obiri down on the plain. The cliff where he and a dozen others waited was at the centre of the wide territory the hunters had been searching through, a good place to watch from in case the hunters got into trouble. He wondered if anyone found it ironic that, after scouring so many miles, their prey had been only half a mile or so away from the watchers.

His horse snorted and tossed his head, and Xavier stroked his soft, warm neck absently. The hunters were close now, only barely visible in their white silks. He supposed only the need for camouflage allowed them to wear white, since the obiri up here with him were still all in black.

But at least he understood the fashion sense now. Last night after the fight with Kheylan he’d dug out the book Al had so helpfully edited, the encyclopaedia of the not-so-mythological, and looked up vampires. Some nameless servant had brought up the tray Kheylan had promised; the princeling himself hadn’t made another appearance.

Xavier had thrown himself into deciphering Al’s handwriting rather than thinking about...well, everything. Al had run a pencil through each line of the original entry, and in between written his own version in tiny lettering. There had been pages and pages of it, and despite his interest Xavier had ended up falling asleep, the food untouched, before finishing it all. It had, after all, been one of the longest, strangest days of his life.

His dreams had been a chaotic mess, stirred up by the familiar tone of Al’s dry, mock-scholarly writing;

_Obiri (vampires) revere the Erra Vesh’dar above all other gods, and to this day remain a greatly religious people. The most well-known of their manifold religious laws is the forbidding of colour, which is believed to prevent distraction and keep the mind focussed; however an exception is made for special occasions and particular festivals._

_As Vesh’dar is the god of war and dying, and the obiri seek to emulate Him, obiri warriors are viewed as among the greatest in the known worlds. Equally well-known is the obiric need for blood. Few realise, however, that this need is a direct result of the obiric dismissal of mana, the practice and honouring of which was in the past viewed as unnecessary beside the reverence of war. As such the intrinsic mana of the obiric race is withered, and must be replenished regularly, on an individual basis, by consuming the mana of others through the blood. Very few obiri have any magical strength worth commenting upon (although it should be noted that those who do are nearly always ferociously gifted)._

_Obiri are primarily dark-haired and paler than most other peoples, though of course skin tone and such varies according to geographical origin. Their bodies are incapable of producing or supporting much muscle or fat, due to the metabolic process which allows them to flit (move at speeds above the sound barrier). Aside from blood, they require a high-energy intake, also to support flitting ability._

_Violet irises, higher-than-usual muscle mass, and darker skin tones are generally signs of syrnan ancestry._

He hadn’t been able to find an entry on syrnans, whatever they were, and eventually he’d been reduced to prowling around his suite, exploring the intriguingly modern-looking plumbing and light fixtures and thinking over what he’d read. The entry had given him plenty of food for thought, but ultimately raised more questions than it answered. What did it mean that obiri revered a god of death, or the implication that mana was a material substance found in blood? How could that be? He’d already grasped that mana was different to the power he’d known on earth, but could it really be _that_ different?

Lost in thought, he nearly jumped when Vladishka suddenly appeared on the clifftop and started ordering people about, but he recovered quickly and adjusted his grip on the reins. He hadn’t known what to expect today, and his jacket hid both his handguns—the Beretta M9 at his left hip and the Glock 27 resting uncomfortably at the small of his back—as well as the knife, and the pentacles carved on each. But now he wished he’d brought his camera instead. His eyes caught the pictures he would have snapped; shots of the sleds that set off to collect whatever animals the hunters had killed, drawn by dogs that reminded Xavier more of wolves than huskies; the hunters as they caught up with their AnKi-ja-morë, throwing their hoods back so that their braids fell down their backs like gleaming black serpents; the smiles and laughter as they passed around leather bottles that no one drank from.

And then Kheylan’s face was in the way. Xavier started.

“What are you doing?” Kheylan demanded.

“Nothing.” He smiled at Kheylan’s look of suspicion, inwardly sighing. If he’d thought helping find Mihai yesterday would endear him to Kheylan, this morning had proved him wrong. “Are we heading back now?”

“Yes.” He might have said more, but from his vantage atop the horse Xavier saw Vladishka clutch her stomach and crumple.

And scream.

_“Rekeishan!”_

Xavier froze in shock, but the others didn’t. In seconds the Dracula, who had stayed on the cliff-top, scooped Vladishka into her arms. She barked something at Kheylan, who hesitated. 

His aunt repeated the—question, order?—and this time Kheylan nodded, raising his arms.

The air tore. That was the only way to describe it; a neat tearing, like someone using scissors on reality. It was more like a hole in a curtain than a window, but it reminded Xavier of both, shimmering like oil on water but otherwise invisible. It was deeply, profoundly disturbing, and if Xavier hadn’t recognised the view through it—Mordecai’s dining hall—he might not have been able to contain the wave of terror that rose at the sight.

Without any discussion the remaining obiri flit through it, one by one traversing in moments a distance that had taken them half a day to hike.

“Well, go,” Kheylan snapped. He looked strained, and Xavier could hear him breathing, loud and hard.

Xavier realised they were the last ones to go through.

 _It looks much easier than_ kasadu, he told himself, and kicked his horse before he could reason himself back into fear.

There was a sensation like icy spiderwebs brushing over his skin as he passed through, making his skin crawl, but it lasted barely a second before his horse’s hooves were clattering on a stone floor instead of crunchy snow. Kheylan stepped through a moment later, and the portal closed with a sound like rustling fabric.

“Wait!” Xavier scrambled down from the saddle ungracefully as Kheylan made to leave. “What’s going on? Is Vladishka ok?” He held the horse’s reins, not sure what to do with them or where to take the animal.

“No,” Kheylan snapped. “Something’s happened to Rekeishan. We need to go to Arcadia.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Xavier said resolutely as Kheylan tried to turn away. “I can help.”

“I don’t have time for this!” Kheylan snarled. The whites of his eyes were showing, and so were his fangs, vicious and animal: the sight made Xavier’s pulse pound. “Go to your bleeding room and wait there!”

Xavier swallowed. “If I stay, so do you,” he pointed out. “Remember?”

Kheylan stared at him as if Xavier had announced the sky was green. Then he snarled. “Fine. Leave the horse and come with me.”

Xavier ran to catch up as Kheylan turned on his heel and hurried from the hall, hoping that the servants could deal with a horse appeared suddenly indoors. Kheylan’s body was hard and tense, full of restrained energy, and it didn’t take a genius to work out that he wanted to be flitting, that walking at human speed was wasting too much time.

Xavier locked his jaw and started running. Kheylan was at his side in an instant, of course, and the look he gave Xavier was unreadable, but at least not hostile as he guided his human escortee through the castle’s maze at a much faster pace.

“Rekeishan is Vladishka’s other half,” he said finally, giving the knowledge like a peace-offering. “The arkadian AnKi-al-it, Siavahda’s cousin and adopted—not brother, zé is a záhn, third-gender—zé is her sibling. Something has happened to zém, and we must find out what.”

 _Siavahda. Al._ Xavier’s heart nearly stopped in his chest at the mention of his lover. _Al’s cousin._ “How does Vladishka know something’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it a spell?” He wondered if he could get something like that with Al—if it would help, after they found each other. If it would convince Al that Xavier wanted to know these things, wanted to know when Al was hurting.

And—a third gender? Was that only for arkadians, or did most of the Annunaki races have more than two?

“No, Rekeishan is her _nejika_.”

“Her what now?”

Kheylan opened his mouth to reply, then frowned. “The closest word in your language,” he said finally, “would be ‘soulmate’.”

“I thought that was just a romantic term?” Xavier thought he might recognise this part of the castle, but he wasn’t sure. Had Vladishka led them through it yesterday?

“It is. In your language. It is not a good translation: Rekeishan is the other half of Vladishka’s soul.” He saw Xavier’s disbelief and misread it as confusion. “It happens sometimes; no one is sure why. Souls break into pieces, and each piece finds a body of its own.” He sighed. “It is…not a good thing,” he admitted quietly. “Not healthy. No one should require another person to be whole.” He shook his head as if to clear it, and when he spoke again his voice was louder, clearer. “Since they found each other and bonded, Ishka and Rek can feel each other’s pain, share power, communicate telepathically. At least when they are closer. This far apart, it would have to be a serious injury for the other to pick up on it.”

“Like _selnin_ ,” Xavier thought aloud. “Which is why you’re all so worried,” he realised.

“Yes.” Kheylan fell silent and stopped running. The room was full of obiri, including, he was strangely relieved to see, Vladishka, back on her feet. All of them had found the time to change into strangely ridged clothes, shirts and trousers made of diamond-shaped metal scales that rippled and shifted as people moved; he saw one woman raise her arm in a test defensive motion and the plates in her sleeve lifted up, their razor-sharp edges bristling like a porcupine’s quills. The stuff was both armour and weapon, a thousand blades controlled with the slightest gesture.

These people scared him.

But it was the twelve-foot tall edifice of gleaming black obsidian that called Xavier’s attention, a huge square window of stone etched with incomprehensible designs and sixteen glowing purple gems. He could feel the energy coming off of it, a thrum deep in his bones, like thunder or the earth before a quake.

“What is that?” he whispered. Kheylan said nothing.

In a moment, he had an answer. When the Dracula spotted her nephew she moved forward and placed her hand on one of the violet crystals.

The stone square—it was a portal. But not small and fragile like the one Kheylan had strained to open: this was solid, not a tear but a wall of molten glass encased within the stone frame. As Xavier stared, a shimmer ran across its surface, light flashing on water, and in its wake the view changed. Vladishka made a sound that dropped into the silence like a stone and she jerked forward as if to hurl herself through into whatever was on the other side. Xavier was too far away to see who, but someone held her arm to calm her.

She grabbed the arm, pulled, and flipped the man over her body to slam into the floor, all faster than Xavier’s eyes could follow.

He looked at her with new respect. She hadn’t been kidding when she claimed she could fight.

Kheylan pulled at his wrist, drawing his attention. “Are you armed?”

“Yes.” The obiri’s expression was too intense for Xavier to consider lying. “I’m carrying both my guns.”

Kheylan recoiled with shock—and then hatred, flashing and raw, but there was no time to speak. The Dracula gestured sharply and walked into the portal surrounded by guards. Vladishka was a heartbeat behind her, and then there were others, and in seconds Xavier was ascending the steps to the stone frame, his heart pounding as he stepped through the shimmering wall between worlds.

It was like stepping into warm water.

And on the other side people were screaming, shrieking, the smell of burning meat and smoking skin was everywhere and his hand flew for his gun but there was nothing, just grass and sky and obiri hiding beneath upraised arms, black hair shrivelling and turning char-white—

Beside him, Kheylan touched his fingertips together before whipping them apart, stretching his arms out as far as he could—and with the gesture Xavier saw something, something shimmery and nearly invisible, spread out over the heads of the gathered obiri. It vanished almost instantly, but the obiri quietened.

“What happened?” Xavier demanded. Soft pain sounds came from all directions, muffled whimpers and hisses as obiri lowered their arms and examined the burns. “I thought sunlight didn’t burn you!” It hadn’t back on Earth—they’d all been outside when Vladishka took them through _kasadu_.

Kheylan looked furious. “What you call UV rays are deadly to us,” he snapped. “As is heat. As is _poison._ Is there aught else your ignorance requires light shed on?”

Xavier stole a glance and flinched: if Kheylan was angry, the Dracula was enraged. “Then why did we come here?”

“We were not meant to.” Kheylan was looking around and frowning stormily. “The portal should have...locked on, I think you would say, to the portal inside Sarakei. We would have entered the journey-room inside the palace, safely indoors. I must talk to my aunt.”

Without waiting for Xavier to answer, he strode away.

Xavier took the opportunity to take in his surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a road: golden yellow (he instantly thought of _The Wizard of Oz_ ) and three times as wide as the largest London street, it was smooth as glass but looked to be made of clay, something like glazed pottery. There was no telling where it went, however, because the clearing they were standing in was merely a short break in the thick forest. Trees as thick as pickup trucks and taller than apartment blocks wove a new sky with their branches, their trunks overgrown with vines that all but dripped jewel-like flowers, blossoms bigger than his head. They looked nothing like the coniferous trees of the UK, more like those he’d come across in tropical South America; even in proportion to their size, the trees here had enormous leaves, blocking so much of the sunlight that, outside of the cleared space that Xavier and the obiri stood in, there was next to no vegetation on the ground.

But there was a river lazily snaking its way between the trees, two brightly coloured barges, graceful and gilded, gliding on its waters. Figures moved over the decks, too far away for Xavier to really make out. The darting streaks of colour among the trees, on the other hand, were not too far away but too quick to see properly; Xavier had an impression of bright eyes and fur, but that was about it.

He was peering into the shadows when Kheylan returned; the breeze of his sudden movement was a welcome relief, and reminded Xavier that the heat-shield in his cuff was still on. “Did you work out what’s happened?” he asked, hurriedly pressing his thumb to the gem and willing the shield to dissipate. Instantly the heat sank from overwhelming to just bearable, but the humidity grew even worse. The shield had been protecting him from that, at least.

“The arkadians batted us aside,” Kheylan said darkly.

Xavier raised his eyebrows and waited.

“They...parried us,” Kheylan tried. “Instead of letting us...connect...to where we meant to go, they...turned our course.”

“You’re saying that they sent you here.” Not just _away_ , but _here_ , to a clearing—the only spot guaranteed to have direct sunlight.

“Yes,” Kheylan said softly. “If I had not come—if there had been no mage in this party, and if I did not always go sun-shielded—my aunt and her warriors—and Vladishka—might have died.”

Xavier hissed softly through his teeth. Without Kheylan’s spell... The same spell, presumably, that must have protected the outpost on Earth... “First Vladishka’s soulmate, now this?” he said quietly. “Someone’s out to get you guys.”

“Yes,” Kheylan agreed, quiet and—intense. “That was my conclusion as well.”

*

Driven by Vladishka’s wild-eyed impatience and the Dracula’s disturbingly quiet rage, their strange party started walking (but not flitting—that, Kheylan explained, would drain their energy too quickly). Kheylan’s spell, whatever it was, did its job: no one else was burned, even when the road passed through more glades. The obiri pulled small bottles from their clothes and swigged from them. Xavier didn’t ask whether they were drinking blood or some kind of healing potion, but it did the trick—soon enough Xavier was wishing for sunglasses and an iced drink and the obiri were whole and hearty again.

So that was good.

What _wasn’t_ as good was Xavier’s growing certainty that they were being followed. Wildlife typically ran away from people, and it was true that after a little while he didn’t see any more splashes of colour that could have been birds or monkeys. But every now and then, when the squirrel-like creatures had fled their coming and the birds flown to other, safer pastures in a flutter of red and blue and green, he saw things bigger than capuchins—a blue-furred humanoid with a long, slim tail and huge amber eyes; another with skin patterned like leaves and shadows, unnaturally thin, like a human stick-insect; one with white and orange feathers growing out of its face, a recognisably humanoid nose and mouth merging grotesquely into a bronze beak; another had ivory spikes protruding from shoulders and knuckles, ringing its red eyes. He had no idea what they were—guardians, sentries? Either way all of them were unnerving, all of them watched, and none seemed disturbed when he spotted them.

It made him wonder if there were more he didn’t see.

To distract himself, he moved closer to Kheylan. “What were you saying about arkadians earlier?”

“What did I say when?” Kheylan asked absently, without so much as glancing at him.

Xavier counted to ten. “You said something about arkadians having a third gender.”

“Oh, that.”

Xavier waited, but Kheylan didn’t elaborate. “Care to explain?” he pressed, when it became clear Kheylan wasn’t going to speak unprompted.

“What is there to explain? They have three, how do you say—three biological genders. But of course they are shapeshifters, and have _oseteir_ also.”

This time, he counted to twenty. “Excuse me?”

Kheylan gave him an odd look. “For what do you need to be excused?”

“It’s a figure of—you know what, never mind. What are _oseteir?”_ He sounded the word out carefully.

The obiri blinked, then considered. After a while, he said finally, “I do not know how to explain it in this language.”

Now Xavier was definitely curious. “Try?”

Kheylan nodded, as if he had expected this entreaty. “Every race has its biological genders, yes? The definitions of the body.” He gestured between them. “In this way, you are male. Or so I presume?”

There was no hint of mockery to the question, only respectful curiosity. “I am,” Xavier answered, thinking of the opposition of Aleron/Siavahda, the man he knew and the woman he could barely imagine.

Kheylan nodded. “But sometimes the body is too limiting,” he continued. “A species may have two, or three, or far more biological genders, but many do not match their bodies, yes? They are as I was, one body-gender in the incorrect body—male in female, or female in male, and so on—or they are beyond the definitions of the body entirely; those who are both male and female, or neither, inside.” He touched his fingertips to his heart, lightly. “Some are fluid, changing from one to another; some have no gender at all inside. Different peoples have different names for them, but _oseteir_ is a word for all whose biology does not properly embody them.”

 _Transgender. Bigender. Agender. Gender-fluid._ Xavier recognised the concepts as Kheylan spoke, ideas and identities he’d read about but, with the exception of transgenderism, never come across himself. The military was not a place for breaking boundaries. Hell, it hadn’t been that many years since the British Armed Forces refused to place women in combat; Xavier could only imagine the higher-ups’ reaction to non-binary individuals.

“It is a complicated issue,” Kheylan was saying. “The alfar, for example, are biologically divided into male and female, but they do not recognise gender at all. In their language, there are only two pronouns; _le,_ for a living creature, and _ji_ , for objects—”

“But the arkadians are not _oseteir_ ,” Xavier interrupted, wanting to make sure he had it right.

“There are arkadian _oseteir_ , of course, but—you mean the zéhn? No, zéhn are not _oseteir_ , they are a body-gender—a biological one—”

The rest of the journey was taken up by Kheylan’s precise explanations. It turned out that arkadians had four, not three, genders—female, male, zéhn, and hikarë—but hikar was a sort of legal title, not a biological gender at all.

“Zéhn are both male and female—hermaphrodites. A záhn who conceives or sires a child becomes hikarë, and gains great status in so doing. You may see one or two when we reach the city.” They would be immediately obvious because they wore particular blue clothing, Kheylan told him. “But you will not see zéhn on the streets. They, and the men, are property of their matriarchs, and generally secluded.”

“They’re _property?”_ Xavier demanded. “I don’t think that means what you think is means.”

“No?” Kheylan frowned. “Property—this is something that is owned, yes? As arkadian females own their men and zéhn.”

Not a translation error at all. Xavier’s head was spinning already from the deluge of new information, but this took the cake. _So much for these guys all being perfect!_ he thought, remembering Eteire’s insistence that the Annunaki were superior to humanity in every way. Not that humans didn’t have this kind of problem too, only reversed—men owning women, instead of the other way around. He had seen the cooled pyre left after a bride burning in Pakistan, and the memory still made him sick.

“Rekeishan is a záhn,” Kheylan continued. “With luck, you will meet zém shortly.”

He proceeded to drill Xavier on the arkadian pronouns—zé and zém equivalent to he/him, and zéiz, which acted like ‘his’, as a possessive pronoun. But one that was used very strangely.

Xavier couldn’t wrap his head around it. “So they can’t say ‘the coat is his’, or whatever?”

Kheylan shook his head, then stopped himself. “No—well—” After a few moments more of struggling to find the words, he gestured sharply and gave up. “In English, it would be ‘the coat is _him’_.” An arkadian’s thoughts, views, opinions, creations; all were a reflection of themselves, a _part_ of themselves, he went on to clarify. As were their clothes, pets, houses, and shoes. “You speak of a person’s coat as you would speak of their arm. There is no distinction.”

“His coat, his arm…” Xavier murmured to himself. “English doesn’t have a distinction between them either.”

“Yes, but you understand that they are different things—your body, and then material possessions. Arkadians see them as one and the same.”

Xavier thought it through. “So… What do they do if someone steals something?”

“Thieves are put to death,” Kheylan said simply, and Xavier tripped, nearly fell flat on his face. “So are vandals.” He shrugged with his wrists at Xavier’s disbelief. “The way they see it, you have not stolen a trinket, you have kidnapped part of their identity. What would you do, if someone stole a piece of your soul?”

 _Shoes are not souls!_ Xavier wanted to shout. He kept his mouth shut instead, even though the thought of some starving kid being shot for stealing a few apples made him want to spit.

Apples made him think of stalls in a marketplace, and that made him wonder how arkadians felt about shopping. Were things you sold part of your identity too?

But before he could ask, the trees abruptly ended; the river, which had vanished sometime during the trek, reappeared. Now twice as wide as the Thames, it wrapped the city ahead of them in crystal-clear arms as surely as a moat; crossing it required a bridge. Luckily, the road led directly to an incredible edifice of stone and wood and glass that knocked Xavier’s breath out of his chest. He couldn’t see any deliberate attempts to shape or decorate it—there were no statues, no symbols or carvings—but it arched over the water in a perfect spun-sugar bow. Despite the heat it looked like nothing but a giant frozen snowflake, delicate and amazing.

And manned by a squadron of…people, none of whom looked anything like the creatures he’d glimpsed in the forest. Which was reassuring. Xavier flicked his gaze over them and despite Kheylan’s explanation was startled to see only women. Every one of them was olive-  or gold-skinned and carried double-edged spear-things with familiar ease, as though they knew how to use them. Each end bore wicked, slightly curved blades as long as Xavier’s forearm. And the staffs were, what? Three, four feet long? Not the best for close combat, but someone who knew how to use one could carve a safe spot for themselves amidst a crowd.

Immediately he thought of that inevitable moment in the zombie films, when the last survivors were being clawed to the ground amidst a crowd of brain-hungry corpses...You’d probably be safe from the zombies with one of those spears.

Clearly the humidity was frying his brain. At least, he hoped that zombies weren’t a viable concern. But who knew—vampires and demons were real. Maybe zombies were too.

Yet again, he made a note to sit down with Al’s book and read it from cover to cover at the first opportunity.

Kheylan was up front, translating between the Dracula and the person who seemed to be in charge. Obiric, English, now arkadian—how many languages did the man know?

It was only a minute or two before the captain nodded and waved them through, and then the obiri and Xavier were crossing the bridge. It was a long walk—made worse by the almost tangible tension, Vladishka’s evident stress and the knowledge, or at least the suspicion, that someone had tried to kill them once already today. Xavier kept a wary eye on the guards manning the other end of the bridge as they passed them. They wore the same white and gold uniforms as the others, carried the same bladed staffs, but one or two of the ones here looked like men. They stood out like sore thumbs.

The bridge touched down on the other side of the river and dissolved into a winding street—into a crowd. The place was full and bustling, bursting at the seams with so much colour and strangeness that Xavier had to suppress the urge to spin around like a child at Disneyland. If the guards had looked normal, then this was where all the strange people were—amongst the people with amber skin, with olive and black and gold, were those whose bare arms were dappled blue and silver like the shadows at the bottom of a lake; people with rainbow-streaked hair; people with three eyes; people whose four arms were all weighed down with ivory and silver. They wore gauzy fabrics in a multitude of jewel tones or went unashamedly naked, their hair loose and flowing or bound in a hundred little braids, flashing with crystal beads; they walked in little groups or perfectly alone, stopping to barter with stallholders or talk with friends. They were almost all recognisably women, but he saw one or two men, bound by silver leashes around their wrists to their female escorts. One young boy wore a silvery collar, his eyes on the ground as he followed along behind a woman who might have been his mother, or his older sister—there was no way for Xavier to know. Others were androgynous enough to defy his attempts at identifying their genders.

Was this what shapeshifters made themselves look like? Or were not all of these people arkadian?

The passers-by stared at them as they made their way through the city; and why not? The obiri were all in black, obviously armed, grim-faced—they couldn’t have looked more out of place if they’d tried. But no one tried to talk to them, or stop them, so Xavier did his best to ignore the disapproving stares. The buildings were as much a riot of colour as the clothing of the city’s people; materials he couldn’t name in fantastical colours that dazzled his eyes twisted and twined into incredible shapes, stone and metal flowing like water into domes, minarets, outdoor staircases, pillars, and stained-glass windows. Murals in all the colours of the rainbow covered the walls, but even as he watched some of the pictures shifted, darkening or growing lighter, whorls of paint swirling like whirlpools to form new shapes, new images; a rearing pegasus in blue became a golden wyvern, a tree with fruit on its branches melted into a flock of birds, a woman’s smiling face transformed into a flower blossom. Serpents and cats were carved around windows and on the eaves of the buildings, but some of them turned to watch the strangers as they passed, stone and clay and metal given a semblance of life that made Xavier catch his breath and simultaneously raised the hair on his arms.

He saw dozens of flat-roofed homes dripping with overhanging greenery; here and there he caught glimpses of people up there on the rooftops, women talking and laughing or tending to the plants. One house they passed was hosting some kind of party, and the smell of roasting meat came from the roof and the open, glass-less windows.

Shapes passed overhead while he was still looking up, and he stopped in his tracks, trying not to gape as huge creatures—they looked like lions, but they couldn’t be, _couldn’t be—_ beat enormous wings and vanished out of sight. Had there been riders on their backs? He wasn’t sure. They’d moved— _flown_ —too quickly.

The vampires turned a corner, and suddenly the street opened up onto an enormous seven-sided plaza. This, too, was full of people. There were more stalls here, seemingly hundreds of them, selling the strangest things—candles in all shapes and sizes, wooden buttons (since no one appeared to have buttons on their clothing Xavier couldn’t imagine a need for these), small orange cats with fennec-fox like ears in elaborate cages, things that could be eggs or just polished rocks in every colour of the rainbow, whole tables devoted to nothing but loose feathers—alongside stalls selling food and drink to the shoppers. He smelled incense and frying vegetables, saw people bartering over scrolls and rolls of cloth and herbs wilting in the heat, saw others lecturing small crowds from atop the small stone plinths dotted about here and there—and once was forced to duck his head to avoid some kind of hawk or falcon carrying a small leather case tied to its foot.

He saw one woman smile after a successful purchase and press the flat-based ruby she’d just bought into the skin of her forearm. It sank into her flesh as if into clay, and stayed there, the latest in a glittering row of jewels.

But what dominated the view was unquestionably the pyramid on the far side of the plaza. It was huge, easily eighteen stories high, and built all of glass or crystal. The golden cap at the apex clutched a clear spherical gem that might have been a diamond, and even at this distance Xavier guessed it must be at least as large as he was—which would make for an impossibly priceless jewel. Light passed through it and scattered rainbows across the plaza, dappling the ground with colour; girl children ran through them with shrieks of laughter, playing some elaborate game with the colours on their skin. Shimmers of light ran through the walls of the pyramid, too, as Xavier watched; silky waves of green and pink and gold rippling as if someone had caught the Aurora Borealis in a snow globe. Now and then the light formed ribbony symbols Xavier couldn’t decipher but that the arkadians seemed to be watching for; he saw more than one woman glance up at the pyramid every so often, as if checking something, so presumably the symbols meant something to them.

Whatever the pyramid was, they were headed straight for it. The Dracula led them straight to the walls around the thing, and this time the guards dressed in gold and white didn’t try to bar the way. The ones on the bridge must have sent some kind of warning ahead. _Smart of them_ , Xavier thought—especially after a quick look at the Dracula’s face.

The courtyard they entered was cooler than the plaza, shaded some by the high walls surrounding it. Xavier saw teenage girls leading creatures that definitely weren’t horses towards what was probably a stable, and more of the uniformed guards going about their business; there were one or two men (or people who looked like men) among them. One of the soldiers on door duty, at the pyramid’s huge entrance, also seemed to be male.

The moment they were waved through, Vladishka flit away, a black blur vanishing into the pyramid-palace whatever-the-hell this place was.

“Vladishka does not think Rekeishan is here,” Kheylan said, manifesting by Xavier’s side. His voice was cold—no surprise there. “She should be able to sense zém at this distance, and cannot.”

“So where did she go?”

“There is an infinitesimal possibility that she is wrong, and thus she will look for zém.”

 _“Alone?”_ Xavier turned on him. “Someone tried to kill all of you today, and you let her go off alone?”

Surprisingly, Kheylan looked, briefly, amused. “Anyone foolish enough to tangle with the Warrior deserves what she gives them. Especially in her current state.”

 _Warrior_. A snippet of conversation with Vladishka came back to him like a blow.

_“And you expect me to believe that Siav is one of these chosen ones? These—Mahorela Aoiveae?”_

_“Not just one of—the first. The Seeker. Each of us have certain gifts, a particular purpose...”_

Us. Vladishka had said each of _us_.

“Christ in high heels,” Xavier muttered. “Your cousin’s one of these Mahrla Ayoiv things, isn’t she?”

“Mahorela Aoiveae,” Kheylan corrected automatically. “You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know,” Xavier snapped. “How would I know?”

Kheylan shrugged and looked back at his aunt, clearly uninterested. Xavier ground his teeth. There was taking orders from a superior, following commands that were meant to keep you and your friends safe—and there were smug pricks just begging for a dust-up.

Kheylan fell into the latter category.

A very nervous teenager led them through a round corridor, and Xavier set aside his frustration in favour of taking in his surroundings. The whole building seemed to be built of some kind of quartz that was as clear as water and blessedly cool after outside. Shifting shapes moved through the walls, as mysterious and strange as deep-sea fish; curls and shimmers of multi-hued light that sometimes, in the corner of Xavier’s eye, seemed to have eyes and lips and faces, pressing against the wall only to whirl away and vanish when you looked them dead on.

They passed no doors, just numerous open archways connecting rooms, and unlike the Dracula’s palace there were no guards inside. Female-looking people with gold coins on their sari-like wraps walked past them, quick and brisk, their mind on business; so too did crocodile-sized lizards wearing jewel-studded collars and carrying messenger pouches with their tails, creatures like komodo dragons crossed with stegosauruses. Smaller, gecko-like lizards darted over the walls and ceiling, carrying gold, silver or copper rings in their mouths and ignoring the obiri with regal indifference as they hurried on to their destinations.

It was surreal.

The page left them to wait in a pleasantly airy room where the lights in the walls formed ever-changing mosaics of soft blues and watery greens. Despite the warmth coming in from the circular windows, someone had lit a fire in the crystalline fireplace, gold and amber flames flickering above silvery logs. Plush, thick cushions that reminded Xavier of beanbags had been strewn across the floor, but no one sat down on them.

Xavier brushed his hand over his left hip, feeling the slight bulge of his Beretta and wondering if this thing in the air, the thick, heavy tension, was going to explode. He wondered how bad it would be if it did.

He had just realised that the fire wasn’t fire at all but a shoal of live, golden fish swimming in a near-invisible tank in the wall when a figure appeared in the archway. Without batting an eye at any of them she walked directly up to the Dracula, made a fist over her heart and opened her hand towards her. Some of the tension left the room, and the obiri King began talking to her in a low voice.

“Don’t you need to translate?” Xavier asked quietly when Kheylan only stared.

“Beryl is _kucandrin_ ,” Kheylan said absently. “She wears a translation-cuff.”

So this was Beryl. Xavier looked down at Beryl’s wrists, but saw no bracelets, only a row of green jewels set into both her forearms—starkly beautiful against her ebony skin—like the woman he’d glimpsed outside. Only when she turned her head for a moment, quickly engaged in conversation with the Dracula—and calmly, too, that was impressive—did he see a gold ear-cuff half-hidden by her breast-length black hair. _If that thing translates languages for you, then I want one_. “Kooka-what?”

Kheylan glared at him. _How did I get lumbered with this blithering idiot?_ his expression said, all too clearly. _“Kucandrin,”_ he said through gritted teeth. “It is—something like a regent, but not. Beryl rules Arcadia, more or less, under the Emperor’s authority; under him, and above the kings and queens who are not _mâéreregedes_ , not AnKien. A _kucandrin_ , but not a Protector-Queen. Do you see?”

“Not in the slightest,” Xavier said mock-cheerfully—but only to annoy Kheylan; he’d understood most of it, the idea of it.

He looked at this Beryl closely, wondering if she had been the one to try and kill them: the awareness of the possibility thrummed in his head. She was not his type, but he had to admit that she was beautiful, one of the most gorgeous people he’d ever seen; late thirties or early forties, he guessed, with stunning mahogany skin and a poise that reminded him of that actress from a few decades back, Judi Dench. But Beryl was also one of the strangest people he’d seen: both her cheeks were covered with lines of script that looked like Roman numerals but were arranged in horizontal lines, like Egyptian hieroglyphics, and what he at first glance thought was another tattoo was actually a thin cord of keloid scar tissue, a dark line bisecting her face right down the middle, from hairline to chin. Ropes of green jewels looped around her throat, and she had tied a black and gold sash around her faintly curved chest, leaving the ends to dangle near the backs of her calves. A belt of green stones and gold discs held up the silky black skirt that brushed the floor and was split at the sides, revealing glimpses of smooth skin. Her nails were a deep emerald green, and a snake-shaped bracelet echoed the same colour around her wrist.

A breeze, and Vladishka materialised in the doorway. Xavier didn’t need anyone to tell him that she hadn’t found Rekeishan. It was written all over her face.

She moved over to her mother and Beryl and joined in their conversation, her voice low and even but her fingers twitching near her belt. Junkie jerks, or maybe just the motion of someone who wanted to go for a knife.

Xavier sighed. “I don’t suppose you’d translate for _me_ , would you?” he asked Kheylan without much hope. What happened now? Where was Rekeishan—what had happened to him—no, not him, zém? He didn’t believe for a moment that Rek’s disappearance was unrelated to the murder attempt (that was what the obiri thought it was, and it was what Xavier would call it until someone proved him wrong). But what the hell did it _mean?_ He felt as though he’d jumped into the middle of the Cold War, only instead of Americans and Russians he was dealing with vampires and Goddess-damned man-hating shapeshifters. There was an entire history of politics that he didn’t know, probably all kinds of enmities and alliances that could have provided some insight into the situation if he only knew what they were. Sure, he hadn’t needed much of that with the SAS, but that was different: at the end of the day, you shut up and followed orders and let the higher-ups deal with the bigger picture. Here, he had a feeling that the bigger picture would be very happy to screw him over, and if that was the case he wanted to know about it.

Goddess above and below, Vladishka was some kind of messiah thing. So was Al. And Xavier was standing in another dimension, his third in two days. Don’t forget that.

Suddenly Beryl’s bracelet—the dark green snake—blinked, slithered around Beryl’s wrist, and then let go of her arm. It changed into a bird before it hit the ground, flew to Beryl’s shoulder, and transformed again, this time into a brown-and-bright-blue creature with feathers _and_ fur, which purred and curled around Beryl’s neck like a scarf.

“There is no need,” Kheylan said dismissively, ignoring both Beryl’s _very strange_ jewellery and Xavier’s subsequent gaping. “Here, give me your hand. No, the one with your bracelet.” He pressed his thumb against the clear white stone set into Xavier’s cuff in what was fast becoming a familiar gesture. “There.”

Xavier jerked as a shimmering skin spread out from the cuff, quickly engulfing his entire body; it squirmed cool and soft over his ears and lips and then vanished, leaving a faint tingling sensation behind. “What did you do?” But he already knew, had already registered that the low conversation at the edge of his hearing had slid from the unknowable into English.

“The _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ contains the same translation spell as Beryl’s cuff,” Kheylan said. “Often those who receive them become Sheol’s ambassadors. A language hex was a prudent addition to its powers...But it is not perfect. Sound that passes through its shield” he gestured to the faint iridescence lingering on Xavier’s skin “is...adjusted, made malleable so that an outside mind can perceive its meaning. But idioms, cultural references...The spell does nothing to your mind or knowledge, so such things will still make no sense to you.”

 _Drac_ _ŭ_ _lan. So that’s what it’s called._ Xavier flexed his hand. “Any sound that passes through? So it’s two-way?” What Kheylan meant about sound being ‘malleable’ he had no idea—how did you make sound waves ‘adjustable’?—but hell, what an incredible, fantastic spell!

“Others will hear your words in their own tongue, yes, so mind what you say.” He frowned, and lowered his voice. “And do not stare at Sashka.”

“Sash—?”

Kheylan’s angry eyes flicked to Beryl’s creature and back again, and Xavier shut up and stopped looking.

Valid point about the two-way thing: he couldn’t assume that he could get away with saying anything he liked now. But that was fine, he knew how to bite his tongue. He grinned, fierce with relief. This would _help_. “Thanks.”

Without discussing it, the two of them moved closer to the pivotal conversation. Vladishka’s voice was growing louder and louder, and the spell was working: Xavier could have sworn they were speaking perfect English, if he hadn’t strained to make out the unintelligible babble of strange, _other_ tongues just seconds ago.

“I don’t know where he is,” Beryl was saying, clearly making an effort to be reasonable. “Or why he would order the mages to do such a thing.” On her shoulder, Sashka’s tail flicked back and forth like a clock’s pendulum.

“How do we know it wasn’t you?” Vladishka snapped, and—and maybe Xavier could believe it, that she was _something_ , not just a vampire but something prophesised, something more than mortal; now that she was nearly vibrating with fury-fear, he could see a glimpse of something bright and burning in her. “They would obey you just as surely as him, _more_ surely than him—”

The Dracula raised her hand to cut her off, but Beryl met Vladishka’s gaze squarely. “Because whenever you were in the Empire, _mâéregel_ , you were _mine_. You played with my son, ran riot in my home—I’d like to think I played my part in raising you, whenever you were outside Sheol.” Beryl dipped her head to the Dracula, who gestured for her to go on. “I care about you.” She smiled wryly. “And besides, I wouldn’t save you from Riowen only to kill you by sunlight.”

“Fine, the Emperor’s missing.” _I don’t care_ , Vladishka’s voice said all too clearly. “Where’s Siav?”

Xavier tensed. _Siav. Siavahda—Al._

Did Beryl’s face betray sadness at having their history brushed aside? Xavier didn’t know her well enough to be sure. “In Iriel, waiting for you. But I don’t think Rekeishan is with her,” she added gently. “I’ve ordered the arkadian seekers out, Vladishka, and they’re hunting, but if you can’t sense zém—”

“She’ll know where zé is,” Vladishka cut her off, ignoring everything but that. Determination, iron focus, or desperation?

Beryl didn’t look surprised. “Do you trust me enough to let me portal you?” she asked, looking from Vladishka to her mother. Sashka’s pointed ears flicked upright, as if the creature was equally interested in the answer.

This time the Dracula managed to answer first, resting her hand on Vladishka’s shoulder. “Yes. But I would have you cast the coordinates yourself.”

“As if I’d do anything less, after this disaster.” Steel in her voice, a flash of anger across that scarred visage. Sashka hissed in an echo.

“Just get us to Iriel,” Vladishka said coldly.

Xavier swallowed hard.


	15. The Hunt (Part Two)

_“The first reaction to truth is hatred.”—Tertullian_

 

A soft chime sounded, gently announcing the use of the palace portal, and Enandir looked up from his desk, instantly wary.

_*Aivorn? Zyvian?*_

A sudden sharpening in his mind as his children—his adopted children—acknowledged him without words.

 _*Someone is at the door,*_ he said simply.

Ice, from Aivorn, glittering and angry. From Zyvian, a brittle kind of anger.

 _*Siav is sleeping,*_ Aivorn told them.

 _*If it’s the Emperor...*_ Zyvian murmured.

 _*Then we will deal with him,*_ Enandir promised.

 )0(

This time when they stepped through the portal there were people waiting for them: men and women dressed in puzzles, their clothes made up of interlocking pieces of metal and stone, flashy tattoos drawn around their eyes in glittering metallic ink. Most were dark-skinned, ochre and sienna and copper, with just a few snowflakes thrown in for variety. The man and woman flanking the olive-toned leader were the blackest people Xavier had ever seen, the colour of pitch or onyx, darker by far than any human shade. If he hadn’t known that it was impossible for identical twins to be different genders, he would have assumed they could be nothing else: they were eerily alike. The only difference was that the woman on the left had gold roses etched into her face, while her brother’s tattoos were mercurial silver.

All of them relaxed on seeing the Dracula. _“Mâérerâgat,”_ the leader said, a smile on his lips and relief staining his voice even through the unfamiliar accent. He, too, had golden tattoos. “My apologies for the welcome. We feared you were someone else.”

“Where’s Siav?” Vladishka demanded, cutting off the exchange of pleasantries before it could begin. “Beryl told us she was here.”

“Asleep,” the one with silver roses said. Responding to some silent command, the other men and women began to drift away, quickly and silently granting them all privacy. The obiri didn’t move.

“Then _wake_ her. No, let me do it. Bring me to her,” Vladishka ordered, stalking down the steps leading to—from—the portal and onto the floor. “ _Now_ , Aivorn!”

Silver-rose dipped his head. The tiny gold bands clasping the end of his dreadlocks clinked together as he and Vladishka moved out of the room.

Xavier stepped forward to follow, and started to a halt at the weight of Kheylan’s hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?” The obiri hissed under his breath.

“To find Siavahda.”

Kheylan shot him a contemptuous look. “Don’t be deranged. She would never speak with the likes of _you_.”

“She’s done a lot more than just talk to me,” Xavier snapped. “Where is she?”

Kheylan raised his eyebrows. “I am not dragging a human into the presence of the _First Mahoroive_ , _”_ he said coldly.

“The _what?”_

“Is all well?” The Dracula asked. Xavier glanced, found too many eyes on the pair of them. “Kheylan?”

Xavier clenched his fist with frustration. _Al, Al, Al._ The name beat in his head like a pulse, humming along with every beat of his heart. They were _here_ , in Iriel or Amaris or wherever this place was—so close! How could he just stand here like a mannequin, knowing Aleron was somewhere in this building? Sleeping—Goddess, he was so beautiful when he was asleep—

Tensing his fist rubbed his skin against the inside of his bracelet, and he looked down at it. Wondered. If _that_ was spelled... What might Al have done to the necklace? To the dragon pendant? Could there be more than a message in it—maybe something to help Xavier reach him?

“Yes, aunt,” Kheylan was saying, somewhere else. “It was just a misunderstanding...”

Xavier reached up and grasped the pendant in his fist. He thought he felt sweat on his palm, his fingers, under his arms.

He was going to feel like a major idiot if this didn’t work.

_Show me where he is. She is. Bring me to him—please!_

For a second nothing happened. The Dracula and the stranger were talking, distantly. And then Kheylan’s head whipped around, shock covering his features like a mortician’s sheet—

If Xavier had expected anything, it was for something out of a special-effects film—beams of light coming from the ruby eyes of his pendant and showing him the way to go, maybe, like the coloured path of a GPS navigation system. It wasn’t to be abruptly in another room, no flash of light and no Kheylan and no idea where he was, either.

The sudden jump through space left a feeling like vertigo, but it passed quickly. He was in a bedroom, all green jewel-tones and oil lamps and sweet, rich incense. The bed itself dominated; circular instead of rectangular, it was raised up on a series of concentric platforms higher than Xavier was tall. He could see the emerald satin blankets, but not whether there was anyone sleeping there, not from where he stood.

And yet he was sure that someone was. It could have been the necklace pulling him on, or maybe the instinct honed by years of dodging people who wanted him and his squad dead, but Xavier climbed the wooden steps up to the bed with only the slightest of hesitations, his heart pounding in his throat and his fingers clenching on nothing.

 _Aleron_... He swallowed hard as the bed’s surface came into view, and the form of someone sleeping under the sheets. It was impossible to describe the frantic knot of hope and dread sparking and bleeding in his stomach, impossible to banish the memory of the bloodstained bathroom and merge it with the here-and-now. Whatever he was about to see couldn’t be as horrific as that— _please, Goddess don’t make me go through that again_ —but could Al really be alive? Could their reunion really be this easy, accomplished simply by ascending a flight of steps?

He had no idea what to expect, and when he stood at the side of the bed he simply stared, struggling with all of it.

The sleeper was unmistakably female. His hopes fell at that, but he reminded himself that he had been warned, that Al was Siav here, it could still be him—her. Xavier looked her over carefully, and then desperately, searching for something familiar. But there was nothing—the dusky golden skin was richer and darker than his own, not Al’s delicate cream, and the shape of her mouth, the eyelashes lying against her cheek, the angle of her jaw—it was all wrong. Her hair was neither the same colour as Al’s nor the same length; shoulder-length dreadlocks of bright, coppery red spread out from her head like the rays of a sun. She lay curled up like a kitten, one hand under her pillow and the other under her cheek, and that was like Al, but the extra joint in her fingers was deeply disturbing. And sometime during her sleep the sheets had been shifted down to her waist, revealing small but unmistakable breasts.

Xavier continued to stare, unable to decide one way or the other. It occurred to him, dimly, that what he was doing—watching a naked woman sleep—was an unpardonable breach of privacy, whether this was Aleron or some stranger, but he couldn’t make himself care. He kept trying to see into the sleeping woman, trying to determine whether this could be the man he loved and what to do if it was. Could he still love Al if he was, as Vladishka and Eteire and everyone else insisted, really _she_?

Would Al want him to?

The sound of a door opening came from behind him, and Xavier turned his head to see Vladishka and the silver-rose guy—Aivorn, she’d called him Aivorn—enter.

Incandescent rage transformed Aivorn’s face the moment he spotted Xavier, and he flung up a hand. Instinctively Xavier dropped onto his stomach on the narrow strip of platform surrounding the bed, but it made no difference; a gold flash erupted around him.

Xavier ducked his head under his arms to protect himself. But when several moments passed without his being incinerated, he looked up.

Two bubbles surrounded him; one, like glass tinted with just the faintest flush of icy blue, was anchored by a thin thread of light to the gem in the _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ cuff. The other, which was larger and encompassed both his body and the first bubble, was a deep red, transparent but thick and, from appearances at least, unshakably solid. Like the first, it was linked to something: the eyes of his dragon pendant. The colour of the red shield was so intense that it was only when he reached out to touch it, and found his fingers stopped by the first bubble, that he realised there were two of them, not just the red one.

Both of them shimmered and disappeared when no more attacks were forthcoming, and warily Xavier got to his feet, his hand ready to cross-draw his Beretta. Aivorn snarled, soft light from the window catching in glints and sparks on his tattoos. “What are you doing in this room?”

“Xavier?”

Slow and sleepy and soft, the speaker was behind him, and the bottom of Xavier’s stomach dropped out at the unfamiliar murmur of honeyed femininity.

He hesitated, unwilling to take his eyes off the man who’d thrown some kind of spell at him, but he couldn’t help himself: he half-turned, just in time to see the haze of awakening disappear from the woman’s face. She was sitting upright, completely unselfconscious of her nakedness, and staring at him as a man stares down the barrel of a gun: with disbelief and fear.

His tongue felt thick and unwieldy in his mouth. “Al?” he asked quietly. “Aleron?” It had to be him. How else could she know Xavier’s name?

“No!” The woman gasped. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!” She wailed, panic and grief transforming her face into a collection of painful angles before she buried her face in her hands. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

 _What?_ “But you told me to,” Xavier said numbly. “You—in the necklace, you said...”

She looked up from her palms and her eyes—they were multi-coloured, opalescent, and they were _glowing_ , lit up like neon, and angry.

“That message wasn’t for you!” she said, flinging back the blankets and standing up on the platform, as easily as if she weren’t buck-naked in front of three people.

The world was spinning like a top. “Al, it’s _me_ ,” he protested, stepping closer and holding his arms out from his sides a little. “Xavier. Don’t you remember?” Could switching bodies have made him forget?

“I know _exactly_ who you are!” She snarled, and he could see it now, see Aleron in a woman’s face, in the lines rage drew around her lit-up eyes. “Zysainae-Enyo _curse it_ , why can’t you just give up and _die_?” She spat the words like knives, like little razor blades. She—Al, Aleron, twisted her-his hands in her-his hair angrily. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

Xavier stared at her. The spinning world jerked to a halt. The razor-words sliced into numb flesh: he didn’t feel them cut. He didn’t feel anything.

Her face twisted with disgusted, helpless anger-hate, and the worst part was that he could suddenly see Al in it.

 )0(

Ok, so, Vee was trying to be patient—really really trying, because Siav was naked and yelling at Xavier even though the illusion in the necklace told him to come here—but it was hot and cold in here, and Aivorn was telling her to be calm and wait until Siav was ready for her _(because Aivorn was in love with Siav and with rules and was angry that people were seeing his sort-of-lover naked)_ but it was hard, and Siav was still yelling, and Aivorn was angry even though she’d told him who Xavier was so that Aivorn wouldn’t try and hex him again: Aivorn was asking questions, lots of questions, about Earth and Xavier and who Siav had been pretending to be, but the words were like fishes, vanishing in and out of the eddies of her mind and impossible to make sense of and

_Rek was missing_

_Missing missing missing_

_Absent_

And it was too much.

“Rekeishan’s gone!” She burst out, flitting away from Aivorn and up the steps, in between Xavier and Siav, her fear and desperation as naked as Siav’s and caring just as much. “Zé’s _gone_.”

 )0(

Xavier saw Vladishka appear and heard her speak as if from far away: his ears were ringing as if a bomb had detonated under his feet. The world had turned silent and glass-cut.

_You’re supposed to be dead!_

Aleron went pale. He—she was suddenly dressed, strange clothes materialising out of the air and then she was gone, she and Vladishka, running past him and down the steps. She barked something, but Xavier didn’t turn around, didn’t watch them go, disappearing from the room like twin ghosts.

“Xavier? Xavier!”

He knew that voice. It was more familiar than that of the woman who had Al’s rage in her. And sure enough, that was Kheylan’s hand gripping his wrist, turning him around. Concern flickered over the obiri’s face, swiftly replaced by a raised eyebrow. “Well?”

“Well?” Xavier echoed, tugging his hand away. “Well, I found Siav.” The words spilled easily from his mouth, light and casual as he descended the steps. “And she’s a bitch.”

The words tasted like rust.

“I do not know that word,” Kheylan said cautiously. “But I fear there is no time to ask for an explanation. The last time I saw that look on my cousin’s face, she and Siavahda nearly brought down Luparrin.”

“I don’t know that word,” Xavier parried, the repartee coming automatically.

“Remind me to explain later,” Kheylan said dryly. “Right now, we should follow them.” He was about to say more, but Aivorn was waiting by the doorway and stepped in front of them.

_You’re supposed to be dead!_

Xavier stared at the man for a second, his mind gone blank. From this distance he could see that Aivorn’s eyes were the same bright quicksilver as his tattoos. Then he remembered the proper etiquette. “Excuse me,” he managed.

Aivorn did not move. “She said to keep you here.”

Xavier caught himself staring again: the tattoos were _moving_ , the roses shifting and swaying as if caught in a breeze. Kheylan hissed softly. “You have no right to detain us.”

Aivorn shrugged. “No right to detain _you_. You’re free to go if you wish, but this one” he nodded at Xavier “stays.”

“He wears a _drac_ _ŭ_ _lan_ given him by my cousin,” Kheylan said quietly, and that woke Xavier up, the barely restrained _rage_ sticking out sharp and cold from his voice. Talk about overprotective, and Kheylan didn’t even _like_ him. “So move.”

They didn’t have _time_ for this. _Follow them_. If he followed Siavahda, could he talk to her? Would she explain what she’d meant—because it couldn’t possibly be what it sounded like, could it? _Should_ he talk to her, or should he take a hint and go back home, pretend this was all a crazy dream?

 _How can it end like this?_ he asked himself, barely noticing Aivorn’s wary but determined mien. His hand found his necklace, fingers closing over the golden dragon like the grip of a gun.

 _It can’t_. _It_ won’t.

He tightened his grip, angry determination, something raw and hot and primal diving into his bloodstream. _Take me to her. Now!_

And he was gone, and back, back in the room with the portal. There were obiri here, still, just a few gathered around the stone frame, but Xavier’s eyes caught on the two figures moving through the small knot of black: Vladishka and Siavahda, running for the stone circle.

“Siavahda!” He shouted, dropping the necklace and running after her. He knew she heard: her head flicked around mid-step, and an expression of incredible hate engulfed her face. She shouted at him—“Go back to Aivorn!”—but didn’t stop. Her green body-suit shone like metal as she raced up the steps to the portal and smacked the frame.

Light burst across the gateway in a wave. Vladishka dived through it without hesitation, and Xavier watched as Siavahda followed a fraction of a second later, passing through the shimmering curtain of dark red light.

It looked like blood.

Without thinking about it Xavier pushed through the stunned and shouting obiri and jumped in after them.


	16. Daeron

_“See you in the darkness.”—Gary Gilmore_

 

The glass floors chimed like bells beneath Tethra’s scaled boots as he ran through corridors mosaicked in mirrors. Intricately worked plates of metal flew around his body like silver birds, shifting and darting as if alive, hovering now about his arms, his chest, briefly haloing his head and the spill of his midnight-blue hair. When he reached his destination, opening the door without waiting for permission and dropping swiftly to his knees, they scattered apart only to instantly gather again, floating above and behind his shoulders like steel wings. Laying him bear of their protection, before his master.

He brought his fist to the base of his throat, in respect and as a signal that his next words were gilded with import. “Syr, the world-wards—”

“I know,” his lord interrupted softly. His voice was like the nap of velvet against Tethra’s spine, a slow, heady caress. “We have guests.”

Tethra dared to look up; the panels of elaborate, flying metal curved in about him as if straining to listen, responding to his uneasiness. Thoughts moved through his master’s red eyes like sharks through an ocean of blood, silent and all the more dangerous for it. “Syr?”

Daeron smiled, and the curve of his lips was a scythe poised to fall. “Ready your warriors, commander. We will give my niece and her friends a proper welcome.”

Tethra opened his fist in acknowledgement and rose; as he straightened his armour swept down to close protectively around him, all the disparate pieces forming a fluid barricade about his body, orbiting every limb, his torso and neck. They hovered above his dark, leathery skin without touching it, moving as he moved and ready for battle. “As you will it, my lord Vovim.”

 *

Xavier stumbled out onto shifting sand beneath a star-stained sky and nearly fell. Darkei was gone, completely and utterly, and for endless seconds the abrupt change left him blinded, his eyes slow to adjust to the darkness of a deep night after the easy light of where he’d just been.

It was doing a number on his brain, the shift, the jump, the transition-less change. His head was spinning a little.

Grudgingly, his pupils widened, drank the darkness in, and shadowed shapes became, if not visible, then discernible. He wished sharply for a pair of SAS-issued night-vision specs; there was no sign of Siavahda or Vladishka, as far as he could tell—but that didn’t mean much, in this murk. He couldn’t make out any tracks in the sand dunes around him, but that might be due to the salty wind biting at his exposed skin.

He drew his Beretta and thumbed off the safety, held it two-handed and pointed at the ground. There was no telling what creatures might leap out of legend and out of the shadows. He’d already met vampires and flying horses; the last thing he needed was to stumble on a—a hydra or something.

 _Siavahda. Aleron._ Where had he— _she_ gone? And how was he supposed to find her?

He raised one hand to the pendant at his throat. The little dragon had proved it could find her once; logic suggested it could do so again. He glanced around, uselessly. It would be smarter to wish himself back to Kheylan, and surer safety, but despite the cruel words etched into his skull— _You’re supposed to be dead!_ —the thought of letting Aleron run into danger alone was unbearable.

He had yet to make up his mind when a shimmering red curtain appeared in the air, like a mirage or hologram. There was nowhere to hide, and instinctively Xavier snatched at the pendant and wished with an intensity born of desperation: _hide me!_

His arm immediately became transparent, like flawless glass, and almost before he could process the change it vanished from his sight completely. His entire body blinked out like a light, clothes and all, and he only had a moment or two to be disorientated by the effect on his depth perception before movement registered on the other side of the curtain.

The not-fabric parted like water, and Xavier caught a glimpse of amber and gold before Kheylan was stepping through—but a different Kheylan. Sometime in the last few seconds the obiri had changed his clothes, exchanging his tunic for a vest of black scales and a long coat that brushed his knees, stiff over his chest but loose and flowing below the waist. The fabric melted into gleaming steel over his shoulders and around his neck, like armour, matching the silver vambraces covering his arms from wrist to elbow, and he looked inhuman in it—strange and dangerous and blazingly, shockingly beautiful. Black stones the size of eggs glinted on the undersides of his wrists, set into the gauntlets, and he carried a slim silver staff the length of a sword in his left hand.

The staff caught Xavier’s attention even as Vladishka’s mother and other obiri followed Kheylan through: the object (weapon? wand? what?) had a long, sharp crystal point at each end, and the one currently pointing at the sky was lit up like a lantern.

Someone said something, quietly, and Kheylan answered, speaking too softly for Xavier to make out. The Dracula gestured sharply and they fell silent as Kheylan swung the staff about gently, as if he were dowsing for water.

Xavier felt something move over his skin in response, like ripples in water, and the cuff on his wrist grew cold.

 _He’s not looking for water,_ he realised, putting two and two together, _he’s looking for_ me _._

And there was no more need to stay hidden anyway, was there? Quickly, fumbling because he couldn’t see it, he touched the pendant and unwished his invisibility; Kheylan’s glowing crystal flashed even brighter, and sounds of surprise, quickly muffled, came from the other obiri.

“Xavier!” Kheylan said, intensely but quietly.

“Kheylan.” Xavier lowered his hand from his necklace. “I lost them.”

“And we lost _you_.” The obiri frowned, striding closer swiftly. “How did you cloak yourself? Your _drac_ _ŭlan_ ” he gestured at the cuff now plainly silver on Xavier’s wrist, “should have let us find you anywhere.”

Xavier shrugged and hooked his thumb around the dragon pendant, pushing it forward a little. “This thing.”

Kheylan frowned and bent over to look at it more closely.

“Kheylan,” the Dracula said sharply.

Rebuked, Kheylan straightened. “I will examine it later, with your permission. We have to find my cousin and Siavahda.”

“Yeah?” Now that Xavier wasn’t in such dire straits, he was calm enough to realise how incredibly _stupid_ running after the two women had been. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just let them get on with it?”

Kheylan gave him a cold look. “They are the Mahorela Aoiveae, the Stars That Light The Dark Heavens. We are soul-sworn to assist them when they are in danger.”

“Danger?” Concern and dread caught him in a pincer movement.

“This is Ivernia,” Kheylan said, as if that should explain everything. “Now come.” The others were already moving, fast and light over the bare ground. “Unless you would rather return to Sheol?”

Xavier shook his head. If there was anything of Aleron in Siavahda, then he would die to protect it, even now, melodramatic or no. He rubbed his thumb over the pentacle he’d carved into the grip of the Beretta, ignoring the flash of disgust on Kheylan’s face at the sight of the weapon, and followed the others.

“Where are we going?” he asked Kheylan, keeping his voice low. “What’s Ivernia? Who lives here?” Kheylan could hate him for his guns all he liked, but Xavier wanted to be prepared for whatever they might meet here.

“The fomoiri,” the princeling said curtly. “This is their home-world. They are a divided people; Daeron holds their AnKi-ja-morë hostage, his mind enslaved. Our reception will vary greatly depending on which faction we meet; the AnKi-ja-morë’s, Tethra’s, or the AnKi his uncle’s.” The princeling gestured with his wand-staff. “I do not think we will be lucky. My spells say that Inis Vitrin is close by, and my cousin heading directly for it.”

“Inis Vitrin?”

“The fomoiri live in island-ships,” the Dracula said. Xavier did not jump to find her so close, but only just. He thought it was the first time she had spoken to him, but of course, now that the cuff translated his words it was the first time she could understand him. “Floating fortresses. Inis Vitrin is the glass isle, the traditional home of the fomoiri AnKi-ja-morë. It is near this shore.”

“So, this Tethra’s stronghold, is what you’re saying,” Xavier confirmed. His heart sank, but he pushed aside emotion to reach for the practical. “How likely is it that Daeron will be there?”

“We must presume his presence,” the Dracula said quietly. She held up a hand when Xavier made to speak. “I know your question. Yes, Daeron can subvert a person’s free will. It is a sick thing, a blasphemy against all life.” Her words cut as sharply as the fangs he glimpsed behind her lips. “And no, we have no defence against it. Siavahda is the only one truly immune, as she and he are opposites. But his powers are not limitless. He holds all of Inis Vitrin under his sway, and must direct them against us; he has not the strength to do so and take us as well, not while we fight him.”

That was either extremely reassuring—because it suggested that Daeron’s forces weren’t all that large after all, if he couldn’t control so many people at once—or not reassuring at all. _Not while we fight him_. But if they were defeated, or if they stopped resisting his influence for even a moment? “They said they were hiding from him,” Xavier said. “Vladishka and—and Siavahda.” Her name, still, had sharp edges in his mouth. “How large are his forces, if he can only control so many at once?”

“Large,” Kheylan said grimly.

“It is a long tale,” the Dracula said, “and there is no time to tell it now. But though all or most of Daeron’s followers would flee him now if they could, not all came to him unwilling. At one time, many saw him as Duranki’s saviour.” The dark night wasn’t enough to hide Xavier’s incredulity; she smiled bitterly at his expression. “They flocked to his banner, and he bound them to him. Millions of folk now compelled to obey him. Siavahda and my daughter did not flee a fantasy.”

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” he said quietly.

She nodded acceptance, and Kheylan changed the topic by instructing Xavier briskly in Fomoiri 101, describing their semi-sentient armour that was not fastened to their skin but hovered above it, the toxins on their claws, where on their bodies to strike to be certain of the kill. Xavier did his best to memorise every word. They were powerful spellcasters, Kheylan warned, but the _drac_ _ŭlan_ would shield him from their curses. The pale blue barrier that had sprung out of the cuff to protect him from Aivorn, yes, that was the one.

The red shield? That must be part of the dragon pendant’s spells. Kheylan wouldn’t speculate about that until he had a chance to look the necklace over properly.

The scent of salt grew stronger, and before long Xavier heard the familiar whispering roar of surf and waves. There was water nearby, an ocean shore, and he was wondering where they were supposed to go from here—walk into the waves?—when he registered the clash of metal.

The obiri all broke into a run at once like a flock of dark birds taking flight. Xavier bolted after them, stumbling and swearing at the suddenly shifting ground beneath his feet, earth giving way to soft sand under his boots. The wind changed and suddenly he could smell smoke, someone was screaming, and he sprinted over a small rise just as an eruption of white light split the night.

And he saw them.

_Swords knives bladed gloves flashing comet-like. Metal metal metal ringing in his ears smell of rust ozone screams so dark and—and—_

White fire streamed from Siavahda’s hands, casting ghostly shadows over her face and lighting her up like a goddess, like Kali or Pele as she lay about herself with the flames, plunging them recklessly into the faces of the enemy, dodging their swords with deceptive clumsiness—

 _She’s fighting with_ fire _—_

A sword swung at her from behind and without thinking Xavier raised his Beretta two-handed and fired, his palm hot against the pentacle etched into the grip, symbol of earth-air-fire-water-spirit, Goddess and magic and the seal of the world—

And the small lead capsule slipped through a gap in the flying-hovering plates of armour and into the fomoire’s skull—

And he-she-it fell in an explosion of slick red ad bone-white—

And Siavahda looked across the fallen body at him. Their gazes locked together like magnets for a centisecond that felt like forever—before she turned and raced away into the dark, towards the waves.

 _Not again!_ “Siavahda!” Xavier shouted, ducking around the last few armoured figures with heart-stopping carelessness—Vladishka was an ebony shadow in the last flickers of the white fire, running alongside Siav, they were leaving Kheylan and the others to finish their enemies off—

Spray arced like black wings around Siavahda’s feet as she ran into the water, and it was so dark but there was more fire in her hand, more pearlescent light, she threw it in front of her and it streaked from her palm like a shooting star, its reflection blazing white on the surface of the water—and as if that play of light-on-water was something solid she reached for it, hauled herself out of the shallows and clambered up onto it as if it could possibly bear her weight— _and it did_ , it held her up and Vladishka too and neither of them seemed surprised—

Xavier stopped and stared, speechless, mindless. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Even now, even after everything, to see someone walk— _run_ , they were already running again—on water—

But there was no time to gawk. He went after them, ran into the waves and the water was freezing cold but he hardly noticed. The white path was fading, melting, dissolving like sugar, but he scrambled for a solid patch and found it. It felt like glass beneath his fingers, slippery and cool, and even as he managed to stand on it he realised it was still coming apart behind him.

If he followed the women, there was a good chance this road would disappear beneath him, dump him in the water far out from shore. And who knew what kind of sea-monsters might be hiding there?

He ran after them anyway.

The sounds of the battle behind him faded. The dragon pendant bounced against his chest; in the back of his mind he reassured himself with its presence. If something went wrong, he could wish himself a shield, will himself back to Kheylan’s side. But Kheylan seemed very far away, and getting further; soon Xavier could hear nothing but the waves around him, and the hoarse wind that bit at his exposed skin. His boots chimed against the white road. The path itself was the only source of light; all else was dark, and he knew his night-vision must be shot, if there was anything out there he would never see it coming in time and even if he did, all he had was a simple human gun—

He shut that thought down, and kept running.

It was easy for civilians to lose track of time in situations like this, but Xavier estimated that it was less than twenty minutes before the sounds around him changed again. The wind, the water—it sounded as if there was something large out there, something very, very big. Kicking himself for not thinking of it earlier, Xavier grasped his pendant and wished himself invisible again, deciding it could only help. But he was still moving forward—and he felt the moment he passed through some kind of magical barrier; it was cold, as if he’d fallen into a winter lake, and then it was gone, and he saw what had been hidden behind it.

It was a castle on the waves, but castle seemed too small a word for it. It blazed like a star on the dark waters, an impossible edifice of glass and crystal; its spires impaled the dim starlets above. It should have looked similar to the Dracula’s ice-palace, but the two buildings were incontrovertibly different. This fortress belonged to the ocean; the Dracula’s to the mountains. It showed.

There was no sign of Siavahda or Vladishka, but Xavier gingerly followed the light-path closer to the walls. No outcry sounded, no alarms blared. Figures moved inside the fortress, made hazy by the distortion of the glass; none seemed aware of him, or of the road Siavahda had made to their very door. Literally; the path of light terminated at a small, crystalline water-gate, like the kind that might guard a sewer. When Xavier peered between the bars, though, he saw what looked like a small, neat dock, with a dozen intricate, beautiful little boats tied fast. He neither saw nor heard any guards—or any sign of how Siavahda and Vladishka had gotten inside.

If they had done. If they hadn’t been found, caught, dragged before Daeron. Siavahda might be immune to his mind control, but that was far from the only thing he could do to her. And Vladishka—

With effort, Xavier put those fears aside. They would only distract him now.

He examined the gate. It was meant to open inwards, which seemed an awkward arrangement for anyone wanting to sail through it until he realised that any fomoire sailor would only have to wave it open with a spell. There was no lock that he could see, but it wouldn’t open.

He could shoot off the hinges. But that would be loud, and for all that this building material looked like glass, it could not be as fragile as the glass he knew.

He considered, then grabbed the dragon around his neck. “Open!” he ordered.

Nothing happened.

He swore silently. Fingers flexing on the Beretta’s grip, he moved on to his next idea, closing his eyes and forcing everything else out, rushing into a crude approximation of a meditative mindset. There was no way to reach the real thing in this kind of situation—not without being a hell of a lot more enlightened than Xavier was, anyway—but he felt the moment that he got into something very like it. Like taking a step sideways from the world, and then a backwards one for good measure.

Trying to keep it up _and_ listen out for any more fomoiri, Xavier hurriedly pictured the door swinging open.

Magic, Xavier had realised years ago, was much less complicated than _Harry Potter_ and others of its ilk made it seem. Even a lot of real, human practitioners didn’t seem to understand that all the bells and whistles—the amulets and athames, runes and rituals, candles and covens—were unnecessary. They could be beautiful, sure, but all they did was help focus the real tool—a human mind.

It was what Xavier focused now, quickly but carefully imagining what he wanted—the open gate—in as much detail as possible: the feel of the glassy stuff swinging open under his palm, the draught of the moving air, the creak of hinges. He made himself feel the relief and accomplishment that he would feel when it opened, and the urgency to reach and help Siavahda.

And—this was the hardest part—he made himself believe that it would open, that it _was_ open.

 _This_ was the real magic: turning belief into reality. Or, to use the impressive name, manifestation. Simple, but difficult, because you had to believe, without the slightest doubt or hesitation or _this is stupid_ , that it would work, that it _did_ work, that what you were imagining was _real_ , while leaving how it was achieved up to the Universe. Maybe Kheylan would arrive fortuitously and be able to spell it open; maybe a servant would open it from the inside; maybe hundreds of years of rust and lack of care would reach a breaking point just this second and the hinges would crack...

Xavier opened his eyes, put his hand flat on the gate, and pushed.

The power Eteire had shown him in her apartment was instantaneous. Xavier’s magic almost never was. He knew— _knew_ —the door would open, but not how, or when. Pushing might do nothing; he might have to wait for some other situation to create itself, Kheylan or a servant or anything. But he had to _try_.

And it opened.

He froze for a moment, surprised beyond belief. But there wasn’t time to think about it, and quickly he stepped through the tall doorway, reaching for his necklace. He was already invisible, but as he had heard the space the fortress took up before he saw it, he knew some similar detail could give his own presence away. Now, hoping that, this time, the dragon did its thing, he wished—

 _Hide me_.

 *

“Dammit, Vee!”

Vladishka looked down at the boy spitted on her knife. Everything was red. “What? He would have told Daeron we were here!”

Siav pushed her out of the way, dropping to her knees in front of the gasping, dying boy. “He already knows we’re here!” Siavahda said sharply. “You didn’t need to kill him!”

Vladishka snarled. Her eyes were red, her _vision_ was red, her skin was too tight and it was too hot and Rek, Rekeishan Rekeishan Rek Rek Rek, she didn’t know where zé _was_ but it was _not here_ , not here with _her_ where zé was supposed to be, so she didn’t give a bleed-it _FUCK_ if some stupid fomoire boy died, who CARED—

Siav did. She had her fingers spread in a star over the boy’s chest, over the wound-blossom spreading its crimson petals, and Vee hissed. “We don’t have time for this!”

“There’s always time,” Siav said coldly. Her hand began to glow, and Vladishka itched with the need to be _gone_ , to be _hunting, Rek Rek Rek_ —

“You can’t even heal him!”

“I don’t need to,” Siavahda snapped. Her hand was glowing white, and the boy’s pained, desperate gasps were easing out. “I’d think the Warrior would have studied her enemies, Vladishka.”

“What does _that_ mean?” the obiri growled. Anger. Anger and rage and _how dare she_ , yes, she knew this feeling, knew fury, could work with this, yes, it felt so _good_ in the red—

“It means that fomoiri have the best internal healing systems after arkadians,” Siav said absently, focussing now. “And I just have to feed him the energy to do the fixing himself.” She looked over her shoulder at Vladishka. “Vee, _where is zé?”_

“I don’t know!” Vladishka hissed desperately. “I still can’t feel zém, I, zé’s, it’s this huge empty space, I didn’t even know it would be this world—” But Siav had, somehow, her Knowing, a vision, _something_ , and Vee whirled on her friend. “Can’t _you—_ ”

“Not without risking bringing this place down on top of us,” Siav hissed back. “I shouldn’t even be doing this,” meaning the healing that wasn’t really healing. “It’s—it’s hard—” 

And Vee knew that, she did, but it was _Rek_ and if some nobody fomoire was worth the risk than surely Rek was too! “We’d survive it,” she argued, and at Siav’s stunned expression, “Well, we _would_.”

The boy’s breathing turned smooth, and Vladishka barely waited an instant before slamming the hilt of her dagger into the base of his throat with perfect strength and aim.

“What are you _doing?!”_

“Putting him to sleep. Or did you want to risk _bringing the castle down on us_ for a sleep-charm?” Vladishka spat. “The throat of a fomoire, it’s like smacking a human in the temple. I know my enemy _pretty burning well_ , thanks very much.”

She paused, fighting to make herself reasonable, logical, _sane_. “And speaking of people who know where we are,” she added, her tongue clumsy in her mouth, “What are you going to do about Xavier? That idiot was following us.”

“I know that,” Siavahda snapped. She’d gone from kern-rois to arkadian in the minutes since they breached the castle, and shapeshifted from there. The woman who stood up and started moving down the corridor alongside Vladishka was a fomoire.

Anger was good. Anger she could feed on—anger would distract her from the bloodlust and from Rek and Daeron and and and—“And? What are you going to do about him?” She breathed through her mouth, tasting the air. “Why did you tell us to bring him here, anyway?”

“I didn’t!” Siav shouted, and Vladishka whirled on her, startled, shut up be _quiet_ think of who might _hear_ , “I told you to bring Nakir! Not some useless human who thinks he’s in love with me!”

 _Nakir_. It meant almost as much as _Rekeishan_ , and Vladishka froze, hearing it. “What about Nakir, Siav?” she asked quietly, almost sane, able to taste the line between herself and sanity.

Siavahda looked away from her. Her face—her fomoire face—was twisted up with anger and tears. “Daeron didn’t kill him,” she muttered.

“Didn’t kill—Nakir’s _alive?!”_

“Yes!” Siav’s head snapped up. “Daeron had him incarnated, on Earth, in a human body—”

“—Where he thought we’d never find him,” Vladishka finished, breathless. “Oh, Zysainae, Siav—does he know?”

Another ‘he’.

“No,” Siav said softly, despair flickering across her unfamiliar features. “I can’t make him wake up. I’ve tried everything, hoped something would trigger the code-lock—I made Xavier fall in love with me so I could be closer, try more. Nothing. He didn’t even remember his necklace.”

So that was why she had given Xavier the dragon pendant...

Siav wiped her eyes and took a breath, composing herself. “Look,” she said a bit more gently, no doubt seeing Vladishka’s twitches and tics and the whites of her eyes, “We should split up. That way—”

“—We can pick you off one by one? How thoughtful of you.”

The two of them whirled. Vladishka snarled, rage sweeping all else aside at the mocking smile on Daeron’s face; there was no room left in her for cool battle-mind logic, only a vicious hunger to rip the sun-burnt soulhole’s throat out. She almost didn’t notice the black-clad man at his side, his face nearly as well-known to her as Rekeishan’s, but something deep down saw the picture they made together: Seeker and Warrior on one side, Keeper and Writer on the other.

Daeron raised an eyebrow. “That’s no way to speak to your uncle, Vladishka.” He sighed, mockingly. “We’ll just have to hope your next life teaches you some manners.” He gestured—“Bruadaris, take Vladishka,”—and the soldiers he’d brought with him leapt forward, a crashing ocean of steel and determined, waxy faces, and Vladishka drew her knives and _roared_.

 *

Xavier glanced to the left, down the corridor the sound had come from, and wondered uneasily what had made the noise.

 _Nothing human. But then, I’m probably the only human on this planet._ A sobering, but completely unnecessary thought; he hesitated. Inis Vitrin was every bit as unnerving as Mordecai, but where the obiri citadel was carved from Sheol’s mountain peaks the Glass Isle was like the shell of some deep-sea creature, grown in layers around some secret heart. The corridors were round tunnels, lit with glowing conch shells and luminescent crystals, and between his own invisibility and the undifferentiated glass everything was made out of, Xavier’s depth-perception was in tatters. He had made his way up a spiral staircase from the small dock, but by now he was hopelessly lost. Only the pendant at his throat, and its ability to whisk him away at a moment’s notice, kept him from giving up and running back to Kheylan.

But he _could_ flee with a thought, and he _was_ hidden from all eyes—he’d passed enough fomoiri in these glass halls to prove it—and that decided him. He headed down the hallway, clutching his Beretta in a two-handed grip and pouring as much focus as he could spare into visualising a shield of white light around himself—

Screams exploded from further down the corridor, beyond a turn, and the roar came again, rumbling and bestial and too loud to come from a humanoid throat, and Xavier ran towards it, hoping and praying that this wasn’t a really fucking stupid mistake—

_*Xavier? Xavier!*_

An electric shock of panic detonated through _every fucking cell_ of his body because _there was a voice in his head_ , a voice that _wasn’t his_ —

_*Xavier, it’s Kheylan! Where are you?*_

Kheylan?!

Xavier felt something like a wince come from the presence in his mind, and understood on a wordless level that his shock and rage was pummelling the obiri. _Serves you fucking right, what are you doing GET OUT OF MY HEAD—_

_*You are concealed from my seeking spells, I cannot pinpoint your location. Where are you?*_

If Kheylan couldn’t find him, how was he in Xavier’s head?

_*Enough, give me your eyes, I will—*_

Whatever Kheylan was going to do, Xavier never heard: there was a painless but incredibly disorientating _lurch_ , like the sudden spin of a rollercoaster going upside-down, and then the nauseating sensation of being trapped in a prison of skin, unable to touch or move or even breathe, just _trapped_ , and maybe it would go on forever, maybe he would be left as a little ball of thought screaming forever in the dark places of his own mind—

And it was over, just like that, and Xavier gasped for breath, panting and shaking as he hadn’t since the first time he killed another human being, it felt like his bones had turned to water—

_*Yes, I see—Xavier, get away from there NOW, the Impaler spirit has taken my cousin, it is not safe—*_

_*FUCK THAT,_ * Xavier thought, unsure how to communicate back but painting the words in capital letters on the inside of his brain seemed like one way to do it, _*SIAV COULD BE IN THAT SOMEWHERE. WHY DON’T YOU AND YOUR BUDDIES GET UP HERE AND HELP ME, IF YOU WANT TO PROTECT ME?*_

He felt-heard-thought a growl that wasn’t his own. _*Wait there,*_ Kheylan ordered, colouring Xavier’s mind with ice and fury. Then he was gone, and Xavier stumbled against the wall, sweating hard. The gun was trembling in his grip: it was still invisible, but he could feel his hands shaking.

Not so much that he couldn’t grasp his necklace (and swear, loudly and creatively) when a dark shadow came racing along the wall towards him and jumped sideways, out of the wall, turned three-dimensional and real and into Kheylan.

“How did you—no, never mind,” Xavier hissed, trying to calm his racing heart as he wished himself visible. Goddess, but this weird mana-thing was going to take some getting used to.

Kheylan didn’t answer anyway, didn’t seem shocked to see Xavier appear out of thin air; he just waited silently for the other obiri to catch them up. They, at least, arrived in the normal way, 3D and breathing instead of shadows on the wall.

There was no discussion. As soon as they were ready, they all plunged around the corner and into the fray.

Into fucking chaos. He couldn’t even _see_ Siav, just this storm of soldiers packed into the narrow space like sardines in a can, and they turned to meet the new threat, crashed into Xavier and the others. Metal on metal, screams and shrieks and that roar, louder than the lions on the discovery channel, and there was nowhere to shoot in the crush of snarling bodies.

He heard Kheylan call his name but couldn’t tell if it was out loud or in his head; he ignored it, struggling to get his gun away, ducking blows and skipping away from long-ass swords that the armoured guys were swinging around like twigs, trying to get some room to manoeuvre. The obiri fought like dancers, tight, economical movements that used the blades in their armour to full and merciless effect, and if he could have Xavier would have stopped to admire them.

The Beretta was away and Xavier ripped the Fairbairn–Sykes from its sheath at his hip, pouring the white light in his head into the knife and diving back into the fight.

 _Come get me_.

One of them did, and Xavier jumped sideways to avoid the sword that whistled past his ear—and then again, and again, the guy was fast, Xavier threw a sharp, jabbing punch with his left hand and hit the armour; it flew around his opponent, leaping to get between Xavier’s hand and his enemy’s body and the impact bruised his knuckles. No matter: he ducked the sword, got in close and hooked the guy’s ankle with his own, throwing his shoulder against the taller creature’s chest one-two-three-four and cut his unprotected throat going down.

Jumped back to avoid the next one. S/he must have seen Xavier’s trick with the ankle; it tried to keep him a sword-length away, so he smashed his knife against its fingers to make it drop the damn blade—

And cut right through the armour—and the fingers beneath it.

The sword dropped, the thing screamed and blood spurted, and Xavier darted in and shut it up. The stumps of its fingers scrabbled at the gaping mouth he cut in the thing’s throat, and Xavier went for the next one, not questioning how his knife could breach the armour, just grateful.

He got the sword away from the next one but it cast green light from its hands, blinding and bright. But nothing happened, he was still shielding and could that have something to do with it, maybe but maybe not and not really the time to wonder, here was another one in the sea-monster shaped helmets, and eventually one of them knocked his knife out of his hand but that was fine, he fought better without it anyway, Krav Maga was all about fighting unarmed—

There was no time to search for his knife; dimly he hoped that he would get a chance later, but for now he couldn’t think about it, couldn’t think at all. The three rules his parents had drummed into him were _don’t think, don’t stop,_ and _don’t play fair_. Breaking any one of those meant hesitating, and hesitating could get you killed, and Xavier didn’t have any intentions of dying today, so he smashed wrists and punched throats and got their swords away from them, sometimes slipping on the bloody floor and sometimes diving deliberately to avoid a blade or one of the brightly-lit spells, dropping and rolling and coming back up again ( _“Like a jack-in-the-box!”_ he could hear his mother shouting at him) and sweeping his leg under their feet with his fists and elbows pounding their armour. His knuckles were aching from beating the metallic plates over and over, but if nothing else it was knocking the breath out of them and they’d seen him cut through the armour before, they were wary of him even without his knife.

But it was tiring. Krav Maga had been designed by Jews to pummel Nazis to pieces—and then _run like hell_. He knew how to get knives and guns away from attackers, knew how to break bones, but nothing, not his parents’ training nor the SAS’, had taught him what to do when your opponents were covered in fucking armour that moved and shifted and occasionally attacked you with razored edges. There was nowhere to run, he couldn’t see the obiri anymore and without his knife, without access to pressure points and vulnerable organs he couldn’t kill or even incapacitate the bastards. He was just keeping them at bay, and he was tiring, there seemed to be hundreds of them and only one of him—

Without warning they fell away from him, puppets with their strings cut. Panting, wary but grateful, Xavier spotted his knife and snatched it up off the ground, setting his stance and holding it ready for whatever was coming. But they ignored him, ran around him and away from something behind them, something he couldn’t see, and Xavier’s pulse jumped in his throat. He heard laughter, wild and insane, and screaming came from the direction the soldiers were running from, screams of such terror that he instantly understood the phrase ‘scared to death’.

Ice ran down his spine. It was like a stampede, the eyes behind those helmets wide and panicked as they dropped their swords and struggled past each other, running, running, and Xavier and the obiri were rocks standing strong in a current, immovable and ignored.

Xavier wondered uneasily if they should be running too. But the Dracula was standing still in the face of the storm, her aristocratic face composed and eyes sharp, so for once Xavier obeyed the implied order and hung back, waiting.

 *

One of the greatest constraints placed on those allied with the Mahorela Aoiveae—with the forces of light, and goodness, and blah, blah, blah—was the proscription on killing their enemies. This was not a normal rule of conflict, which was one reason non-humans went to war so rarely: they were too few, and too infertile, to allow their numbers to be constantly culled. No, the reason the Duranki Council had ordered the allied worlds to kill Daeron’s forces only when absolutely necessary was because the overwhelming majority of the bastard’s soldiers were being controlled.

Vladishka didn’t care. She didn’t even _think_. There was only the rage, the hatred, the pain of her missing _nejika_ —and the red, red veil fallen over her mind and vision.

 _Impaler spirit._ The madness in her blood.

Like a Viking beserker, she roared as she cut them down, screaming in their terrified faces before her knives took off their heads, laughing as their blood painted her cheeks and sprayed into her mouth, down her throat, feeding the red, red, _red_ veil. The red didn’t care that her mana was only a trickle within her, all but used up by breaking Earth’s null two days ago; it didn’t care that the fomoiri kept coming, like waves on a beach; it didn’t even notice when they bruised her, cut her, made her bleed.

You couldn’t kill Death.

Nor could you disarm Death. When an absurdly lucky shot knocked away first her left knife, then her right, she merely smirked at the stunned-terrified-determined face of the fomoire in front of her and spun away, giving herself room.

She clapped her hands together, laughing—and when she pulled them apart it was to reveal a length of black wood, smooth as satin, one that grew longer the wider she spread her hands. Her hair, damp with blood that should have kept it clumped together and heavy, lifted from her skull, full of static, waving and curling as if she were underwater; and she laughed and laughed, flicking her wrists so that the spear—the Spear, distilled from death and war, last of the seven _sacrym_ forged by the gods—dislodged from its other-space and into the material world, into her hand.

“Come on,” she purred, spinning the thing like a toy in the face of their abject terror. “Come die, you pathetic _krsnajna_. _”_ Abruptly the soft, cat-with-the-cream expression disappeared, and she lifted the spear. _“COME DIE!”_ she screamed, Vesh’dar’s daughter garbed in blood like silk.

They scattered, pushing and shoving past each other to get away from her, from the Spear whose dull, unimpressive tip would destroy their souls if it drew their blood. And Vladishka laughed, because there was nowhere to run, nowhere they could go that would be safe from her, and she leapt forward, Spear aloft.

Death is also indiscriminate. As she plunged the Spear into the slowest of the fomoiri, the red kept Vladishka from seeing Siavahda’s plight.

 *

Gold rushed into Enandir’s tattoos like sunlight as the door flew open with a crash, and recognising the intruder didn’t calm his heartbeat.

“What—” he began, but Aivorn cut him off, slamming his hands against Enandir’s desk.

“Siav is gone.”

Enandir blinked. “To Zaruth?” It seemed unlikely, but perhaps she had changed her mind about her father’s request. But it wasn’t like her to be so foolish, when Alumit clearly—

“To Ivernia!”

 _“What?”_ The harsh, angry glow that had been fading from his tattoos burst into brightness again. “Why?”

“After Rekeishan. Vladishka,” he added, and that was explanation enough, the Warrior had been so _wild_ —

 _“Eloi_ , they went alone,” Aivorn said urgently, and Enandir’s trail of thought stopped dead.

“Summon your sister,” he ordered, the surprise wiped from his face in an instant. His golden eyes shimmered, hard and cool. “Tell her to ready as many warriors as can be got quickly. We’re going after them.”

“The obiri already have,” his adopted son told him quickly. “The Dracula and her nephew.” Information that could be valuable, but didn’t need expanding on; Aivorn didn’t even bother to run out of the room but shadow-walked away in a writhing net of dark ribbons.

 *

Daeron did not waste his breath on taunts. He and Bruadaris separated like hunting cats, and the Keeper moved on Siavahda.

He knew it was her. Even if it there was the slightest chance that someone else would accompany Vladishka here—a fomoire, as she appeared to be, or an arkadian—he knew her.

He always knew her.

Which was why he had no trouble discerning the panic in her eyes as she raised her hands to him.

“Come now, princess,” he said softly. No power laced his voice—Siavahda was the one mortal alive who would always be immune. “We both know you will not risk using your power here.”

A quick, desperate glance after Vladishka’s retreating back—and she shifted, switched from arkadian to draconian. Daeron’s expression did not change as enormous wings unfolded from Siavahda’s back, great banners of crimson and gold that were hampered by the narrow corridor.

He did not bother assuring her that she was doomed to lose to him: she would not listen, even though it was true. He struck out with ice, a snarling wind of it sweeping through the hallway, frosting the gleaming glass walls in an instant. Fire erupted from Siavahda’s mouth, stained green from the acidic venom on her teeth; the two met and tangled, white-hot flame and diamond-blue frost, two dragons biting and tearing at each other—

And Daeron darted close and struck her, his sword biting deep into the arm she flung up to protect herself. Her fire vanished as her mouth snapped shut, and her tail swung for him with its razor-sharp isosceles. But his ice, now unencumbered, leapt forward eagerly, and it caught her, feeding on the deceptively delicate membranes of her wings as she struggled to catch his blade with her scaled hands. Her wings flared uselessly, and she snapped at him, her fangs glinting emerald with venom, but her eyes were wide with shocked pain—as well they should be, for no metal could bite through draconian scales, and yet his sword did, and Daeron allowed himself a small smirk, infinitely faster than her as his ice cooled her blood and made her sluggish, as her blood hit and splashed against the floor, and she stumbled, sooner than he had expected—

A small explosion came from behind him.

—and pain erupted in his chest.

He shrieked with agony and fury, whirling around to see—

He froze, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him as his wards destroyed the bullet and repaired the damage.

“You,” he hissed. He dismissed Siavahda at once: weak as she was, she would break within hours, if not minutes. This man standing before him, defiant and determined behind his upraised gun—Daeron had a passing knowledge of human weaponry—this man, this _human_ , was the real threat.

 *

Vladishka was the source of the awful laughter. She was briefly visible, in a gap between the terrified soldiers, and she sounded like a wild thing, like someone dangerous escaped from a mental hospital. The Joker, maybe.

And at the sight of the spear in her hand, the red and blue shields from his necklace and cuff sprang up, pulsing with what might have been alarm.

Her mother tried to call her. Not a one of the obiri looked anything but horrified, but she didn’t seem to hear them, laughing crazily as she herded the creatures up the hallway and out of sight.

“Shouldn’t we follow her?” Xavier demanded as the corridor began to clear. Something was obviously wrong with her—

But Kheylan shook his head. “It’s not safe,” he said quietly, as if ashamed to admit it.

Xavier went cold.

But as Vladishka ran past them—ran past _him_ , just inches away from him, and he might as well have not existed for how much he registered to her—Xavier saw ice, and fire, and a man in black swinging a sword—

The Dracula snarled, and for an instant Xavier got a good look at her weapon, long and thin like a katana but with two blades running alongside each other, and Kheylan flit to Xavier’s side as the other obiri ran forward, holding his swords to guard Xavier and explaining, quick and low and pointing with his chin, “There, Siav—”

Siav, Siavahda, Aleron, the one bleeding, and shaking, and falling—

Faster than Xavier could think, before the Dracula could even reach the fight, Xavier dropped his knife and grabbed his Beretta and fired.

The man screamed, and whirled—and thank the goddess, he was leaving Aleron, Al would be okay—

“You,” the man hissed—

And he was coming over here—

The Dracula was abruptly between them, in the way, sword crossed to block Daeron’s path. “Stop this,” she said quietly, and Xavier didn’t understand the intensity in the King’s voice, the tension in her shoulders. “Come back to us, Daeron. Nerro never wanted this, and you know it.”

The man—Daeron—stared. Xavier wondered if anyone could fake that kind of shock, that ice-pure incredulity.

That outrage.

Daeron gestured sharply, and the shadows cast by the glowing gems set into the walls like torches—the shadows came to life, humanoid shapes of elemental darkness that lunged for the Dracula and her warriors. Some of the obiri weren’t fast enough— _too slow_ , how was that possible, Xavier had seen them flit too fast to see—to avoid the shadowy fingers curling around their throats, immaterial and inexorable, and they screamed as threads ran over their necks and faces, as if black poison were flooding their veins—

But Xavier couldn’t help them. Daeron—Daeron was looking at him.

He hadn’t been afraid for himself until this, hadn’t allowed fear to infringe on the emptiness required for Krav Maga. He had feared for Siavahda, and he had begun to worry a little when he started getting tired, but hadn’t been afraid until he met the newcomer’s eyes.

It was like staring into eternity, and seeing a universe of hate looking back at you.

The man—Daeron, the Dracula had called him, _Daeron_ , oh Goddess but not now _not now_ —flicked his fingers, and Xavier’s shields of blue and red light shattered, an explosion of coloured glass that scored his skin and ripped his bloodstained clothes, but even the bursts of pain couldn’t tear a noise from Xavier’s throat, frozen, terrified, unable to make a sound as Daeron stalked towards him—

Beside him Kheylan made a strangled sound—something that might have been a choked back sob of fear—and lunged forward, cutting across Xavier and breaking Xavier’s line of sight, breaking the hold Daeron’s gaze had on him. Xavier fell to one knee with the release of it, shaking, the Beretta sliding from suddenly limp fingers, watching with terrifying numbness as Kheylan’s swords met Daeron’s with a harpy’s screech.

Daeron’s face—pale, sharp, too beautiful to be real, a twisted parody of nature—sneered as he brushed Kheylan’s swords away as another man would a fly.

Then he pivoted, left hand snapping forward sharply like someone throwing a knife. There _was_ no knife, no nothing, and yet Kheylan was punched backwards as if he’d been hit by a train, swords falling to the ground with a clatter.

Only to jump up an instant later and fly lightning-quick to Kheylan’s hands as he back-flipped in time to kick off the wall. It kept him from smashing into the crystal but he kicked too hard or maybe not hard enough, spun in the air and landed on the floor in a twisting sprawl of limbs and blades and whipping braid—and then he was on his feet, only a dark blur in-between to say he’d moved at all.

Daeron—Daeron sheathed his sword in air, vanishing it.

The crystal wand-hilts of Kheylan’s blades lit up and he dove forward; Daeron smiled. A black-and-violet nimbus erupted around him, sheathed him from head to toe, and if Xavier hadn’t already met Daeron’s eyes this would have convinced him the man was demonic or evil or _something_ , just from the oily, electric feel of the energy pulsing off the blackness. It made him want to scrub his skin, but when he tried to rub at his arm his hand fell back to the glass floor. He was still shaking too hard to move.

Kheylan lashed out, his lit-up swords spinning between his fingers like catherine wheels so that it was the crystals that plunged into Daeron’s aura of black mana, long and sharp as knives.

They snapped with a sound of shattering stone. Pale blue light exploded from the breaking points, and Kheylan cried out—the first sound he’d made since the duel’s beginning—and stumbled backwards, dropping his swords again.

Daeron motioned with two fingers—two fingers still sheathed in that black power—and Kheylan—

Kheylan dropped to his knees with blood gushing from his ears and eyes and nose, and the noise he made—it made Xavier’s skin crawl, made his marrow shudder. _That_ noise, the sound of a man in too much pain to scream, breathless and torn—he’d heard it from soldiers with their legs cut off by a bomb, from a woman doused in petrol and set alight—

 _Get up get up GET UP!_ he ordered himself, frantic, because Goddess the noise was echoing in his head and in his teeth and the pit of his stomach, he had to get _up_ —

Daeron’s eyes flashed to him, alerted by the smallest of movements, and those _eyes_. Xavier heard a low, broken moan come out of his own throat, felt himself crushed to the floor like Atlas under the weight of the sky.

It didn’t seem to be enough. Dismissing Kheylan—leaving him to bleed—Daeron walked towards Xavier and began raising his hand.

Xavier didn’t think. He’d never been so afraid in his life; he _couldn’t_ think.

Daeron stopped a few inches away and frowned. Xavier had misplaced the pit of his stomach. The nimbus of anti-light around Daeron’s fingers thickened, twisted with a dark, inky blue. Xavier could feel his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest. Daeron crouched down, and Xavier was frozen, frozen by the weight of hate in those eyes, couldn’t move and couldn’t move and the black-and-blue wreathed fingers touched his forehead like a twisted blessing, a Satanic priest—

Nothing happened.

For a second, human and monster mirrored each other with identical expressions of shock.

And then Xavier remembered his knife.

He plunged it into Daeron’s thigh _(there, femoral artery right THERE you fucking bastard)_ and it _went_ , sank through the nimbus and into flesh as Kheylan’s crystals had not and hot, black blood splashed Xavier’s face, disturbingly sweet and minty on his tongue and Daeron roared, green light flashed but still, nothing, Xavier was untouched and he pulled his knife free _(because that makes the wound bleed out faster, kills them faster)_ and scrabbled backwards ungracefully, inky black blood on his face and his hands, Fairbairn–Sykes clutched tightly in slippery fingers.

He risked a quick glance around. Kheylan had fallen on his side, blood pooling around his head, clutching his skull. The Dracula and the others were pinned in by the shadow creatures.

Daeron hissed. Silver beams, thin as thread, shot from his fingertips and into his leg and the bleeding began to slow, the wound started to close over even as Xavier watched. _Stitches? Is he giving himself stitches?_

It seemed he was, sewing himself up with quick and messy field-doctoring. Xavier couldn’t believe the man was giving him such an opening, but he didn’t care; he pushed on the ground, ready to clamber upright and—

 _“Laisdeh,”_ Daeron ordered without looking up and Xavier froze, Daeron’s sword back and hovering against Xavier’s throat, longsharpserrated, his neck caught between two wave-like edges, cold steel, and if he moved, if he turned his head he’d be cutting his own throat—

 _Okay. Fine,_ he told himself over the ice in his gut and the screaming panic beating razor-blade wings in his chest, _so you don’t move your head._

_And remember to breathe._

He set his knife down—no good now, nowhere to put it that it would be useful later—and reached out with his hand, so damn carefully, so damn slow that he wanted to be sick—or was that the fear? No time to work that out, just the sweat turning clammy on his skin and the thick smell of blood on the air and the taste of mint in his mouth, just the touch of metal under his fingers as his hand closed on his Beretta, _thank you Goddess_ , now be fast, faster than you’ve ever been—

Xavier whipped the gun up and threw himself flat on his back, a line of fire scored across his neck as he rolled aside, hot wetness on his throat and the screech of metal on glass as the sword hit the ground like a guillotine, just missing him—

A black blur in the corner of his vision.

Daeron’s boot met Xavier’s wrist, his right, the one holding the Beretta; uncanny precision and shrieking pain as bones crunched, fingers released and the gun flew away; a broken wrist, fine, Xavier twisted and threw his elbow into Daeron’s thigh, trying to hit the stab wound; fire exploded up his arm and he yelled but so did Daeron, fuck that hurt, his eyes were watering and Daeron had his sword in hand— _how? mana_ —that reminded him and Xavier buffered up his shield, the white light in his mind, praying, trying to scramble backwards on the floor and kick out and just fucking _get away_ before Daeron could do the blurring-fast thing again—

The white light. The shield. The fire at Eteire’s apartment. _‘How did you do that?’_

He pictured the light around Kheylan, praying, Daeron hissed and Xavier rolled again, biting back a scream at the pressure it put on his arm, his broken wrist, oh Goddess where had his gun gone, too much pain he couldn’t concentrate on Kheylan’s shield—

And there was a blur, another one, appeared from behind Daeron and snatched at the ground and darted back again, away—

Daeron shrieked, his sword vanished, and there was Kheylan, Kheylan with a blood-streaked face and his hand on Xavier’s knife, holding it in Daeron’s back, the shield had lasted long enough—

Daeron whirled with a snarl of rage—how could he be so unhampered with a knife in the back?—and Xavier didn’t see what happened, only saw Kheylan fall, again, saw Daeron’s boot smash into his face when the princeling was down, more blood, fuck it fuck it fuck it—

He couldn’t find the Beretta and couldn’t get at the Glock holstered at the small of his back, except he had to, right hand wouldn’t cooperate and left was pushing him up, sitting upright, then squirming to get at the holster, to grab the Glock, jostle his right arm and _fuck_ the _pain_ fucking _come on—!_

Screaming at himself—

Kheylan’s vambraces, the black jewels in them shone like stars as he stumbled to his feet; blindingly bright, brighter and brighter and how could darkness be bright, how, but this was, sweeping over his wrists and hands like a dark river, an ebony waterfall roaring for Daeron—

And Daeron, he—

Reached out and caught it, all of it, grasped it in one hand as if it were no more than a recalcitrant ribbon—

And _pulled_ —pulled Kheylan with it—

And a shout of horror and denial caught in Xavier’s throat as Daeron jerked Kheylan closer and _onto his sword_ , impaling him through the stomach—

And—

_No—_

—The expression on Kheylan’s face—

_No!_

The stream of Kheylan’s power dissolved in Daeron’s hand like smoke, and Kheylan was bleeding, bleeding _more_ and _again_ and Daeron reached up with his now-free hand to yank Kheylan’s head to the side, fangs nearing Kheylan’s throat—

Kheylan didn’t fight back, looked too weak to even stay on his feet—

Daeron’s fingers closed on Kheylan’s braid—

_NO!_

And Daeron screamed as lightning raced up his arm, ropes and ropes of it burning white and gold from the gemstones in Kheylan’s hair. He dropped Xavier’s guardian and clutched his smoking hand, his burnt arm and sleeve, red and blistered, hissing pain through sharp fangs— _he’s an obiri too!_ —pain and _rage_ —

And Xavier—Xavier fumbled with his jacket, and his holster—

Kheylan lay helpless on the floor, clutching his bleeding stomach and coughing, fear in his eyes— _fear!_ —as Daeron picked up the sword he had dropped, the sword with its scalloped, serrated edges, and raised it over Kheylan with such hatred in his face—

And the gun was in Xavier’s hand, the Glock, and he couldn’t stand but he was kneeling, kneeling on the crystal floor and in the blood, and his fingers felt so clumsy—

But he’d been trained for this, had fired in worse conditions than this (he told himself) with broken ribs and once with a concussion, and if he couldn’t stand then he could still pull the trigger, and did, left-handed, palm against the pentacle on the grip—

And fired.

Daeron roared. The nimbus around him pulsed with dull, shimmering light, and Xavier fired again, and again, all chest shots, trying for the heart or at least the lungs, again, and again, and Daeron was looking at him with pure rage but Xavier closed his eyes and prayed that the bastard didn’t move—

Fired again, and again—

And the roar this time was a scream, and Xavier’s eyes snapped open automatically—and almost screamed himself at the sight, something red and gold and lizard-like biting into Daeron’s neck, the wound gleaming green and bleeding red, Daeron fighting and struggling as a red-and-gold tail wrapped around his leg and huge, draconic wings swallowed up his body, holding him still as the thing held on with its teeth, what the fuck _was_ that—!

Kheylan—

Daeron’s head was all that was visible above the wings cocooning him, and abruptly it was nothing but smoke, black smoke that escaped the thing’s hold and spiralled upwards, vanishing between the cracks in the glass ceiling, taking the shadow-creatures he’d summoned with him—

The FS embedded in Daeron’s back clattered to the floor—

The lizard-thing stumbled—

 _Kheylan_ —

The obiri ran to their fallen one, but somehow Xavier was faster, falling to his knees beside the _fucking_ idiot who’d taken on a monster for him, and fuck, there was so much blood and Xavier had nothing, not even bandages. He shouldn’t have been panicking, should have been calm and logical about it, like he’d always been in South America, but he wasn’t; he started shrugging out of his jacket and bit his tongue at the disapproval from his wrist, until anonymous hands saw what he was doing and helped, helped him pull his shirt up over his head and bunch it up, pressed it down on the wound, his Glock lying forgotten on the floor, but Kheylan’s eyes were glassy, his face going slack and no, no, _fuck_ **no** —

“Xavier!”

Xavier glanced up but didn’t relieve the pressure he was pushing at Kheylan’s stomach, his left hand alongside those of nameless obiri. “What?” he demanded. His voice was rough, but he hadn’t screamed.

“He needs blood,” the King said urgently. “Obiri blood is no good: it must be yours, and now.”

He could ask why later: Xavier stuck out his left wrist without hesitating. Kheylan had gotten impaled protecting _him_. “Cut me.”

The Dracula withdrew a small knife, seemingly out of the air, and slashed Xavier’s wrist. The bright flash of pain made Xavier hiss, and somewhere in the back of his mind the depth of the cut worried him. But the obiri had cut across his wrist, not down, so he figured it was fine: he pressed the steadily dripping wound to Kheylan’s lips.

For a second, nothing. The seconds stretched, and Xavier couldn’t search for a pulse because his left hand was keeping pressure on Kheylan’s stomach and his right was held awkwardly against Khey’s mouth, blood— _his_ blood—leaking between the obiri’s lips, drop by drop—

And then Kheylan’s hand locked onto Xavier’s wrist in a blurred grip of steel, and his eyes opened, and he bit down.  



	17. And We All Fall Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the details about the pegasi in this verse: a winged horse is now known as a senrima, and their introduction in the chapter 'Mettle' has been edited.

_“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”—Carl Jung_

 

They ran from her like rats, and Vladishka laughed delightedly, laying about her with the Spear. She taunted them, mocked them, teased them cruelly with the flat of the spearhead, or tripped them with its staff. The ones so caught cried and begged for their souls, lying flat on the floor, knowing escape was impossible; she drank their wine-like fear and ignored their words, gutting them like fish.

Sometimes she used the Spear to kill slowly; let them live a few minutes with their souls already dead in their breasts.

Sometimes she lunged and caught one with her hands, not the Spear; snapped their necks or buried her fangs in their throats until the blood turned dark and rich with the emptiness of their heartbeats.

Sometimes she even let them live.

This one, though, would die. Her fingers were locked around his neck as he sobbed like a child, and Vladishka rolled her eyes through the red.

“You could have gone with honour,” she told him, holding the Spear against his chest. Their armour scrabbled like the claws of loyal pets against the weapon, but such was nothing to one of the _sacrym_.

“No, please, please, wait! I-I can help you!”

She ignored him and readied her grip.

_“I can take you to Rekeishan!”_

_Rekeishan_. That word—that name... It pierced the red like a knife, and she bared her fangs in a hiss, shaking him like a puppy. “Where is zé?!” she snarled. She pressed the Spear’s point beneath his eye—he had lost his helmet long ago.

The fomoire shook, a leaf lost in the storm of her rage. “I can take you to zém,” he shuddered, desperation colouring his voice a sickly yellow. “Right now. Just—just, please, don’t—”

Vladishka hissed and he yelped, cringing away from her.

“If you’re lying to me...” She drew the Spear’s point across his skin, not quite enough to cut, but nearly, oh, so nearly—

“I’m not, I’m not, oh Zysainae please, please—”

“Shut up,” she snarled, and his jaw snapped shut instantly. She released him, her whole body trembling with the red, red, _red_ urge to run him through and chase after the rest of them, the ones who’d already vanished like rabbits into a warren. “Show me where zé is. Now!” she snapped when he didn’t move. He flinched, but immediately started walking.

 *

White fire flashed through Xavier’s veins like an electric current, and his whole body jerked with it. Sweat and tremors broke out all over him, and he let his head drop onto Kheylan’s upper chest.

Because it took all his concentration not to moan. It wasn’t neat, and it wasn’t pretty; Kheylan’s teeth tore through his wrist, a savage slicing that turned what had been a neat little line of red into a gaping mouth of a wound, one that gushed blood. But it didn’t hurt. The obiri’s fangs—four of them—bit down hard, sinking into Xavier’s flesh and pinning his arm in place, and it _should_ have hurt, except... Except that pleasure radiated from the four spikes in his wrist, pulsing warm and honey-golden through his veins, better than anything he’d ever felt in his life: every sucking pull on his wrist could have been Kheylan sucking on his cock, and that with the languid warmth pouring through his muscles like an internal massage, caressing away pains he hadn’t known were there and pains that he did, plucking his nerve-endings like harp-strings to make them hum and sing. Neither the smell of copper nor the dull, throbbing pain in the blood vessels around his wrist could outbalanced the fact that he was harder than he’d been since his teens, a breath away from coming in his pants like a virgin.

Struggling to keep his breathing regular, he pressed his face against Kheylan’s chest and tried not to whimper like a puppy as the obiri growled, the vibrations running all the way up his arm. Christ in high heels, but he wanted to come. If he could have remembered his name, he’d have tried to imagine distinctly unsexy things, like corpses and open sewers, but the world was spinning around him and the vertigo was just making it worse, gold wires pushing deliciously painfully through his veins and arteries, trapping him, weaving a cage of precious metal beneath his skin, dragging him down into thick, opium incense...

“Tha’ssss ihnuff.”

Kheylan’s fingers—and his teeth—tightened their grip, and Xavier choked as the new wave of golden heat ripped the breath from his lungs. Shit, fuck, he was going to, going to—

“Tha’s _ihnuff!”_

A warm hand grabbed Xavier’s left arm below the elbow. He looked up sluggishly—and was abruptly, briefly wide awake. The lizard-thing—no, dragon-thing, it had wings—that had attacked Daeron was glaring down at Kheylan. The hand it gripped Xavier’s arm with was twice the size of his own. And no wonder its voice sounded strange—its jaw jutted out from its face, thick and wide like the snout of a...well, a lizard.

Kheylan snarled, and the sound rippled directly into Xavier’s viscera, travelled through Kheylan’s fangs and made them vibrate deep in Xavier’s flesh, oh _fuck_ —

A couple of seconds more, and things would have become socially unacceptable. Luckily (or not, Xavier thought later, depending on how you looked at it) Kheylan decided he didn’t want to do battle sporting a gut wound, and his teeth slid free.

Xavier clenched his eyes and his jaw. It was the same slick discomfort/relief/disappointment as when a guy pulled his cock out of you, and that thought only made the goddess-damned _bar of steel_ between his legs throb like a heart.

Not that he could do anything about that just now, and he knew that in a minute or two he’d be grateful he hadn’t come in front of a busload of strangers. Just. In a minute.

Sighing internally, he rocked back onto his heels, careful not to jostle either of his hands. Both dragon and obiri glanced at him, but since they both let go he ignored them. Or at least, pulled a pretty good approximation of ignoring the nine foot tall draconic monster and the obiri whose face was currently covered in his blood.

Actually, the latter was kind of disturbingly hot.

Looking quickly away—Kheylan’s gaze was uncomfortably intense with Xavier’s blood smeared over the lower half of his face—Xavier tried to get out of the knot of obiri. He still felt warm, turned-on and sluggish, and he’d be a lot happier if he could get his breath back without everyone staring at him. “Right. I’ll just—”

“Ur wist needs healing.”

The dragon. Xavier suppressed a shudder. At least the obiri looked pretty human. This thing—didn’t. Not in the slightest. “Excuse me?”

Like the obiri, the dragon-thing had red eyes, but where theirs were just red irises, the dragon’s eyes looked bloodshot—solid red globes, except for a slash of pupil that shone angry gold. Looking directly into them made Xavier feel ill with the sense of _unnaturalbadwrong!_ “Ur wist,” it said again.

 _Does it mean ‘wrist’?_ No doubt enunciation was difficult with a mouth like that. Xavier turned over his arm and glanced at his ‘wist’.

And stared. He’d felt Kheylan tear into him, but—this—and why didn’t it hurt, that should definitely _hurt_ , he should have been _screaming_ —

“Allow me.” It wasn’t a request, and Xavier let Kheylan take his hand again, his skin throbbing under the obiri’s fingers, a slow pulse of languid heat that slid off Xavier’s shock.

Shock that turned sharp and bright when Kheylan bent his head and licked, covering the ripped-open wound in a thick layer of cool spit.

 _Histatins_ , Xavier thought numbly, those agents in human saliva that helped cuts heal faster. They’d discovered it back in ’08, he remembered reading about it—but he really doubted that _obiri spit_ was going to keep him from bleeding out worlds away from home—

Except... He stared, unable to speak as he abruptly stopped bleeding. When the blood cleared away—dripped onto the floor and Kheylan’s shirt—he could see things _wiggling_ , slick things that were probably arteries and tendons squirming and writhing like a mass of worms, and he could feel them, wet and slimy and shudderingly, disgustingly _urgh_. He closed his eyes and focussed on not being sick.

When he opened them again there was nothing but a scar, smooth and shiny and clear as a stamp.

Kheylan looked smug, and then frowned as if he couldn’t remember why. The dragon-creature grunted—in satisfaction?—and as the Dracula moved forward to help Kheylan sit up Xavier took the opportunity to escape. His body felt unwieldy and heavy, tired, his right wrist still a blinding source of pain and his legs threatening to send him sprawling; he didn’t waste any time finding a quiet spot and sitting down, away from the hustle and bustle where he wouldn’t distract anyone taking care of the real wounded.

He cradled his wrist, trying to examine it. The _drac_ _ŭlan_ bracelet was still in one piece—not even dented—but the flesh above and below it was already swelling, turning the unhappy shades of a bad bruise. He hoped the cuff would come off; it probably wouldn’t work very well as a splint.

There were other questions in his mind. Such as: would Daeron come back? They hadn’t killed him. How long a breather did they have?

Syrelle was suddenly there, kneeling down in front of him. “You are injured,” she stated coolly.

Xavier tilted his head. “You again.” He hadn’t noticed her in all the commotion. “Yeah, my wrist. I think it’s broken.”

Syrelle ghosted her fingers lightly over his arm, over the bracelet. Her touch was so gentle he didn’t even wince. “I agree with your diagnosis,” she said formally. “But I cannot remove this. A moment.”

She unfolded upright and stalked away. He stared after her, unsure. It felt like a confirmation of his fears when she returned leading the Dracula.

“How’s Kheylan?” he asked. His voice hummed in his ears, as if an undercurrent of static or white noise were playing beneath his words.

“Thanks to you, he will live.” The Dracula knelt and touched the silver cuff; the white stone lit up for an instant, and when its glow faded the bracelet sprang open. It would have fallen if Syrelle hadn’t caught it, quick and deft. “Thank you, Syrelle. Xavier, she will bring you anything you need, but I must tend my nephew.” She made a quick, sharp gesture—touched her first two fingers to her forehead and then held them out, as if she meant to blow a kiss—and left.

Now that the cuff was off, Syrelle produced a different kind of bracelet, made out of something blue and spongey. Working it onto his wrist, over his fingers and hand, was difficult, but once in place Xavier swore he felt it grow a skeleton of steel, protecting and supporting the break. Better still, a blissful cold emanated from it, one that quickly numbed the pain.

“You carry these with you?” he asked, tentatively flexing his fingers. They ached sharply, but it was bearable.

“Of course. Obiri bones are so fragile—they are forever breaking something.”

Xavier looked up, startled. “‘They’? Aren’t you one? An obiri?”

She looked surprised, and then laughed. “No! I am syrnan. Our species are close allies, but not the same.” She grinned. “Very close, though,” she allowed. “Syrnans have race-rights in Sheol, and obiri have the same privilege in Syrna.” She examined the wrist support. “Even the AnKi-ja-morë’s bearer was syrnan.”

“Vladishka’s—bearer? You mean her mother?” Xavier glanced past her to where the Dracula stood among her soldiers. “The Dracula is syrnan?”

Syrelle laughed. “Ah, no, of course not. She is obiri. But her first _syzýgo_ —ah, I think you would say consort? He was syrnan, and her best-loved.” She sobered, and sighed. “Ai, but he died when Vladishka was young. It was very sad.”

It took Xavier a moment to process this blithe commentary. Once he did, his mind ground to a stuttering halt. “Wait, wait. Her—Vladishka’s _father_ gave birth to her?” Surely he had misunderstood. Or was this one of those _oseteir_ things Kheylan had mentioned?

Syrelle looked at him strangely. “Of course! How could it be otherwise? The Dracula has no time to carry a child!” Running her hands over his wrist one last time, she rocked back on his heels, heedless of his gut-punched shock. “I will find you food, and recover your weapons. Try to rest.”

Rest? Hah! Not freaking likely, after that little bombshell. She left him reeling, turning her words over and over in his head. It was almost a relief, to latch onto some new weirdness and allow himself a few minutes to just freak out about it; it meant he didn’t have to think about Kheylan’s teeth in his wrist, or Daeron’s eyes, or that short, frantic battle.

He wanted to go back to Earth, where people were _sane._

Well, he admitted to himself a little later, san _er_.

Xavier didn’t do much in the way of ‘resting’ except sit where Syrelle left him and put the _drac_ _ŭlan_ on his left wrist—it seemed too valuable to risk losing in a pocket. Syrelle found and brought back his FS knife (covered in oily black blood) and both his guns, even going so far as to help him get them all back in their holsters and sheath. She didn’t seem to care that he was shirtless; just presented his jacket to him once the weapons were put away to her satisfaction.

While he was manoeuvring his wrist through the sleeve, she found food.

“You need to feed,” she said without preamble, and for an awful moment Xavier thought she was going to try and give him her blood, which really would have been the final straw. But instead she produced a metal hip flask of juice and a couple of pastries. Where they had been kept so that they weren’t turned into pancakes in the fight he didn’t know, but he was grateful; he hadn’t realised he was hungry until he had flakes of crispy pastry sticking to his fingers. The juice was pear, and the pastries were thick and meaty, sweet with something that reminded him of syrup. Not his thing, but at that moment he would have eaten almost anything.

Just not blood.

Kheylan was on his feet when the syrnan came back with a handful of hard candies. By then Xavier was feeling steady enough to clumsily reload his guns and mourn the loss of his shirt—the Glock was really going to chafe at the small of his back—and the obiri were using some kind of spell to turn the bodies of their dead into tiny puddles of red. Xavier sucked the candies and watched as they scooped the puddles into little vials—surely not glass, that would be too fragile—that disappeared into their coats. As nauseating as it was to watch faces, even dead ones, melt and dissolve like flesh in acid, those little bottles were a hell of a lot easier to transport.

He didn’t think he could have given his friends in the SAS the same treatment, though.

But it was all the ceremony the dead would get, apparently: the dragon-thing was snapping and snarling, its tail flicking back and forth angrily, and people were moving. Soon enough they were leaving this bloodstained little spot behind them, descending again into the maze of long, meandering corridors and hallways. The obiri castle was like this too; was it a non-human thing, to turn your home into some kind of labyrinth?

 _Or_ , Xavier realised suddenly, _it’s a defence mechanism to confuse enemies_. But how often did these creatures go to war, that they had to build their homes like this?

 *

Rekeishan had decided that zé hated the dark.

Well, that was perhaps a little unfair. Zé had never hated the darkness when it was the backdrop for the stars in the night sky, or the setting for their midnight bonfires as children, the flames bright as amber in silver jewellery. Or when it was just the element Vladishka had been born manipulating, using ribbons of shadow for cat’s-cradle or to tie back her hair. The dark had always been the best co-conspirator in hide-and-seek, cloaking Rek from Nakir and Farien and Siav.

It had hidden zém from Riowen, more than once.

But _this_ darkness... This one, zé hated. It was so intense and all-consuming that no matter what form zé took, no matter how zé changed zéiz eyes, Rek could see nothing. Zé couldn’t see the floor, or the walls, couldn’t completely convince zémself that zé wasn’t hanging in the midst of a void—because surely Daeron could create such a thing, if he was as powerful as they said.

The cuffs made the skin of Rek’s wrists bubble and blister, and hanging for so long had nearly dislocated zéiz shoulders. Only shifting forms—over and over and over until zéiz body felt like rubber stretched too long and hard—had kept zéiz limbs in their sockets, and only barely. Zéiz shoulders were agony, and so was zéiz back, and the soles of zéiz feet. They had beaten all three bloody, and zé had screamed, and wept.

Shame made zém sick to zéiz stomach, remembering. Nakir—Farien—they would not have cried, not even in this place. They would have known whether or not to eat and drink what they were given—Vladishka would have known how to tell whether something was drugged, and spells to neutralise any poisons. She would have been able to keep track of time, even here in the dark void.

 _Especially_ in the dark void. She could have made the darkness swallow her whole, turned it into a portal to take her home. What did zé have? Control over water, untrained because zéhn were forbidden the arts of war, or self-defence.

Rek grit zéiz teeth. _It doesn’t matter. I_ will not _die here._  Zé couldn’t. Maybe the white-haired boy had muted zéiz and Vladishka’s soulbond, as Daeron had claimed, but he hadn’t destroyed it. If Rek died, so would Vee.

_I will not die here._

But despair underwrote zéiz agony, despite zéiz strong words. Zé knew zé didn’t have a hope. Zéiz betrayer would delay any search, and send any would-be rescuers on the wrong path, besides. If Vladishka couldn’t feel zém...

Then she wasn’t coming.

 _I will not cry_ , zé whispered silently, screwing zéiz eyes tightly shut in defiance to any spells that might be monitoring zém. _Not again. You can’t have my tears._

_Not again._

 *

If Vladishka had been sane, she wouldn’t have made it so clear that there was someone killing off the soldiers stationed in the dungeons. The trail of dead bodies was really quite obvious.

But she didn’t care. The only thought in her mind was ripping that door off its hinges and getting Rekeishan out of here, getting zém to Lorellor and, later, coming back and shattering this glass castle into countless sun-burnt pieces.

“Is it this one?” she demanded of her quavering guide, using her retrieved _kaikej_ dagger to point at the door.

He nodded, trembling. “Y-Yes. All the prisoners are down there. Rekeishan is at the end of the hallway.”

“Good.” Without warning she plunged the dagger into the man’s chest.

He gasped, but was too shocked to cry out as she ripped the blade free again, turning her attention to the door.

“But... But you said...” He made a weak, wailing sound as he slumped against the wall.

Vladishka sneered. “I didn’t use the Spear. Count your blessings.” She ignored him as he died, raising the dagger—still dripping jade-green fomoire blood—and burying it in the crystal of the door to the hilt.

Instantly, the ‘wound’ hissed, a burning black scorch-mark that quickly grew larger and larger. The smoke billowed out, but she ignored the burning in her eyes and stood statue-still, her hand still on the dagger as she waited for the acidic blood to do its work.

When it reached the lock-wards ingrained in the door, the spells flared bright blue and rusty red for a moment, almost blinding. But again, she kept her eyes open until they vanished, snuffed out like pinched candle-flames, and the door swung open smoothly on the oiled hinges and slammed into the wall.

And she’d half expected them to creak.

Without waiting another second she whipped her hand back and ripped the dagger free, quickly running down the uneven steps into the darkness. Nightfire torches—burning blue and black flames—cast threatening shadows over the crystalline walls, but she ignored them.

Dracula-Imperials weren’t afraid of the things that went bump in the night. The monsters were afraid of _them_.

The black-and-sapphire fire was just enough to lighten the darkness, which was deep and sticky as pitch even to her eyes. She scanned her surroundings. There were dozens of doors, and within them dozens of heartbeats—Daeron’s prisoners.

When she was younger, her teachers had blindfolded her and blocked her sense of smell, ordering her to identify those in the room with her ears alone. It was a vital part of obiric training, because they almost always fought at night to have the advantage over enemies who couldn’t see as well as they in the dark. Even obiric sight had limits, though, and it was important to be able to hear your opponent coming—and knowing their species told you everything you needed to know about their weaknesses.

Vladishka had never been trained to detect humans, but after twenty-some years on Earth she knew the way they breathed and the pattern of their heartbeats nonetheless.

Why did Daeron have so many human prisoners?

But then she heard Rek’s breathing, and the rest of it didn’t matter.

 *

“Illianor’s tits, man!” Zyvian snapped, jerking her mount’s reins to the right as Aivorn’s nervous fidgeting made his horse rear unexpectedly. “If you can’t keep yourself—and your Shikae-cursed horse!—under control you can stay behind and kiss thorns!”

Aivorn’s eyes glittered. “You can’t keep me from coming,” he said softly. The roses around his eyes fluttered as if in a wind, light flushing through the silver ink. A warning.

“Oh? Try me.” She lifted his chin and met her twin’s eyes squarely, gold to silver. Under her armour, Zyvian’s arms were an account book of her kills, every life taken marked into her skin with a white-hot blade so she would never forget a single one of them. There were silvers, among the tally. Aivorn’s power didn’t frighten her. She was _Teirja_ , the blood-rose whose thorns were swords, the rois Siduro. And she had earned it, unstain it all!

Aivorn looked away first.

Zyvian returned her attention to the mages. Working to create a temporary portal between worlds—Iriel’s was too small to transport an army—their skin gleamed with the protective runes etched into their bare arms, throats and faces, encircling their roisen-marks in place of piercings. The symbols were even dyed into their hair that was left loose to blow in the wind, their power-bright eyes shining out from the whipping strands.

A cry went up as a sheen like violet oil rippled between the two groups of mages, unfolding like a drawn curtain, and Zyvian turned to see the cause of the uproar.

“He brought the hrimthurren,” Aivorn murmured, awed.

Zyvian stared. The dark cloud on the horizon was rapidly sharpening in clarity, revealing defined edges and sharp contours—beating wings and swishing tails, the glare of sunlight on armour and swords. Almost a thousand senrimas—each one nearly twice the size of an earth-bound horse—followed Enandir, each one bearing a kern-rois soldier armed with blade and bow. They were the elite, but Zyvian hadn’t thought there was time to gather them. More surprising were the blue-black dragons flying alongside the kern-rois senrimas. Kern-Rois had no dragons.

Abruptly Enandir at the head of the formation dived, and the herd-flock followed with ease, swooping down over the plains to land at a run a little away from the gathered kern-rois soldiers.

The earth shook beneath their feet.

Zyvian gave her war-horse her heels and caught a passing scout, a young girl with a white bow slung over her shoulder. “Tell the commanders to be ready to move,” she ordered, and the girl nodded, scampering off quickly. Satisfied that her soldiers would be ready she urged her mount on and cantered towards her _eloi_. The short journey took her past mounted soldiers, bowmen dressed in dappled grey and green, and a small cadre of precious healers. Even these latter wore the seraph-armour she had designed with Vladishka, Lorellor, and Siavahda; bodysuits of opalescent silver grown from the stem cells of arkadian skindancers, each one spliced with the DNA of the armour’s owner so that no one else could wear or use it. As she cantered past, she glimpsed a young bigender _oset_ growing long blades from the palms of hir suit, readying hir weapons as most of hir peers were doing.

Zyvian slid her gaze from her own soldiers to the gathered hrimthurren. They sat atop midnight-blue dragons of a kind she’d never seen before, slim-lined and wide-winged, their scales gleaming like stars, and the riders were no less exotic. The shoulder-length hair they wore loose, fine as dandelion fluff and blowing in the wind, was sapphire, azure, silver, streaked with black or bright apple green. Winding branches of vine-like tattoos adorned their pale faces, stark against skin that gleamed like marble, disappearing under the bands of dark glass protecting their sensitive eyes.

Enandir was deep in conversation with a hrimthur woman when Zyvian pulled up in front of them. “Ah, Zyvian,” he said, breaking off. “I think you know Milanae Irina-el?”

“I do,” Zyvian agreed, smiling despite the solemnity of the situation. “I didn’t think to see her here, but it’s good to be proven wrong.”

The tall, rangy woman—a good nine feet above Zyvian’s head on the back of her dragon—smiled. “Likewise. Lady Xadira sent me to help—my hunters and I are under your command.” Her lips quirked. “Just for today, of course.”

“Of course,” Zyvian agreed automatically, hiding her surprise. _Her hunters? _ Milanae had gone up in the world, then. The last time they met Milanae had been the lowest-ranking hunter in her clan, hoping to make her fortune by joining those sent to seek the lost AnKi-ja-morë of Kern-Rois and Niflheim after losing the use of her legs in an accident. “You’ll have to thank Lady Xadira for me.”

It was hard to tell with the glass shielding her eyes from the midday sun, but Zyvian was willing to bet that Milanae was suppressing laughter. “Perhaps you can finally accept my invitation to visit,” she said tartly, “and thank Xadira yourself.”

Enandir coughed into his hand. “As kind as your offer is, I’m afraid there’s no time for pleasantries,” he said apologetically.

“Of course. Apologies.” Milanae’s expression turned business-like, but she didn’t sound too sorry—light and a little playful, actually, even knowing what they faced. “Perhaps another time, Zyvian. Enandir.” She dipped her head to them both and then shouted without warning: _“Miothor terenask, iy reton jiedrel!”_

Without any visible prompting the dragon under her leapt upwards, throwing itself into the sky from a standing start, pushing off the ground with its heavily muscled back legs. As one the hrimthurren dragon-riders followed her, leaping into the air like a crashing wave into the sky.

“What strings did you pull to call them in?” Zyvian asked when they were alone.

Enandir smiled grimly. “She’s their AnKi too.” Which didn’t answer the question. When Zyvian opened her mouth to point that out, her _eloi_ cut across her. “Give your soldiers their pep-talk. We’ve wasted too much time already.” He barely waited for Zyvian’s nod before giving his mount his heels and leading the senrima-cavalry into the sky alongside the hrimthurren.

Zyvian shielded her eyes with her hand. For a moment, rising up into the sky like that, her people looked like a flock of swallows, or angels.

 *

“Rekeishan!”

“Vee?” It couldn’t be... Zé licked zéiz broken lips, sternly telling zémself that hope would only hurt zém. _She can’t have found you, not without the bond_... But maybe they hadn’t muted the bond, maybe it had been a lie. _And maybe her voice is an illusion. A spell to torture you._

_Or maybe you’re going mad._

Still, trying to ignore the doubt and fear curled tight in zéiz stomach, zé raised zéiz voice painfully. “Vladishka! In here!”

There was no long silence to kill zéiz hopes: the snarl that came from somewhere in the darkness was infinitely familiar, so loud that zéiz chains reverberated with it, shaking zém hard, and zéiz heart leapt, pounding, _yes, yes, it’s her!_

The snarl became a roar of rage and frustration, and a deafening _crash_ of exploding glass came from somewhere in front of zém. Green and violet light burst into life in the darkness, a writhing web of mana criss-crossing the door it illuminated, and the spear—Spear—punched through the door.

 *

Everyone froze suddenly, and Xavier tensed, looking for what had caught their attention. But there was nothing.

“Thees wai,” the dragon ordered sharply, and the obiri ran left. Xavier followed without hesitating, trusting, ducking into the room the dragon-creature indicated.

Only as the dragon closed it gently behind them did Xavier catch the sound of voices coming down the halls. More of Daeron’s soldiers?

He mentally added ‘superpowered hearing’ to the list of obiric abilities.

One of the vamps grabbed him and pulled him away from the door as Kheylan made quick, darting gestures with his hands; Xavier could almost see the spells he cast, something to keep them from being spotted through the glass walls. Everyone was grave-silent, barely breathing as the voices grew louder outside in the hallway.

Coolly, Xavier grasped his Beretta, left-handed. If his bullets could hurt Daeron, they should be good enough for his lackeys. But his heart was pounding, and the scar on his wrist ached dully. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to go hand-to-hand again.

The dragon-creature stood closest to the door, and although Xavier couldn’t read the reptilian expression on its face its stance was tense, practically thrumming with expectation and dread, more so than the vamps. Xavier wasn’t at all sure he was reading it right, but he thought the lizard-thing looked torn.

And then the door handle rattled.

 *

The light snuffed out, but the door swung open—the _sacrym_ must have destroyed the spell keeping it locked, but zé didn’t have it in zém to be scandalised by the distinctly unholy use of such a sacred object, because—

Because—

“Vladishka,” zéiz voice vanished, leaving only a whisper behind but zé could _see_ her, she was here, real and _here_ , “Zysainae, Vee—”

She flit to zém, dropping the Spear on the floor carelessly, and zéiz relief froze in zéiz chest at the savage, near-mindless expression on her face.

“Vee,” Rek whispered, a little bit afraid but she just crooned at zém, low and wordless like an animal, and zé relaxed—she knew zém, recognised zém, wouldn’t hurt zém even in the crimson kingdom of her blood-madness. But, zé thought, seeing the rage beaming out of her eyes like sunlight as she ran her palms over Rekeishan’s tortured body, zé wouldn’t be in Daeron’s tunic for all the Empire’s emeralds.

And then the blue serenity of her touch overwhelmed zém, and Rek’s eyes fell closed, zéiz body forgetting the pain it was in and relaxing as much as it could.

Dracula-Imperial blood ran strong, strong enough to cancel out her father’s syrnan genes; Vladishka was too short to reach the chains suspending zém from the ceiling, and even if she hadn’t been, no obiri was strong enough to just snap them without some kind of help. Vee leapt straight up and broke them between her fingers as if no one had ever told her that, and caught Rek before zé could fall more than an inch.

Rekeishan whimpered as zé fell into her arms, biting zéiz lip hard to try and keep quiet. Zéiz blood was staining her sleeves, getting on her hands; zé knew it must be nearly impossible for her to stay even this close to sanity. But it _hurt_ , every cell of zéiz body wanted to cry out, wanted it to _stop_ , and Vladishka was here, was, she would make it better...

As she did. Crooning again, a wolf to her pup, Vladishka stroked zéiz sweaty hair and pressed zéiz head against her chest, and with the gesture reached out through their bond. It _was_ muted, she felt far away and distant, muffled, but her confident serenity came through like firelight through fog, soothing zéiz fears and pains as her fingers carded through zéiz hair.

She was strong, and utterly sure in her ability to get zém home safely. The feeling was underscored with the technicalities _(strong enough to destroy everything between zém and home)_ but it did its job: Rekeishan pressed zéiz face against her bloodied tunic and let her mad serenity take zém away from the world.

 *

Incomparable—and indescribable—peace flowed over her like cool water as she carefully tightened her grip on Rekeishan’s body. There was rage in it, white hot rage that anyone would dare hurt her _nejika_ like this—but it was dim, somewhere in the back of her mind. Smothered, for the moment, by the sweet relief of having zém _back_.

She pressed her face against zéiz hair, breathing in deeply. Blood, and scorched flesh, fear-sweat and pain-sweat—and under it, Rek, sweet and familiar. Safe, now.

Her madness eased some with the feel of zéiz heartbeat against her chest, and she didn’t waste any time lingering in the cell. Rek was hurt, zé needed a healer, and she was tired, tired to the point of exhaustion. Her injuries were minor, but needed treatment; she needed a week’s worth of sweet, sugary foods and another week of rest before she would feel confident enough to claim she was on form. She needed to get them home.

With no hands for the Spear, the _sacrym_ vanished from the material world and took up its warm, familiar presence in her blood; a much-needed surge of energy pulsed through her and she grabbed hold of it gratefully as she headed for the steps and the door leading out of this overgrown cellar—

If the blood-madness had still been fully on her, or if she had been unable to borrow energy from the Spear, she would have missed it, but even exhausted she was Sheol-trained, and did not: a smell too familiar to ignore, coming from the cell opposite what had been Rekeishan’s. A musky spice that all obiri found distasteful, layered through with the signature-scent of someone she knew.

She was ashamed, later, to remember how she’d hesitated before going to investigate. But there was Rek, and the berserker-madness pounding like drums in her head, and muscles trembling with tiredness, even with the Spear’s help. Her soulmate’s weight was very nearly too much for her, and there would be fomoiri and Daeron on the floors above.

She almost ignored it. _Siav said..._

But she couldn’t. Siavahda wasn’t a goddess, no matter what the common people might whisper: she wasn’t omniscient, even if they all forgot that, sometimes.

So Vladishka summoned the Spear again and broke down another door.

 *

The dragon-thing closed its eyes, looking pained and afraid—and Xavier remembered, remembered Kheylan saying _that’s Siavahda_ just as the dragon—just as _Siav_ , just as _Al_ whipped his/her hand out and a dart of quicksilver light slammed into the door.

The rattling stopped.

They all waited, tense as bow-strings, as the voices outside murmured softly...and moved away.

 Xavier breathed out, relieved. Siav— _Al_ ; and the relief vanished because goddess, how had he forgotten, how could he have run to Kheylan and forgotten, even in the blizzard of adrenalin and terror and wild, dangerous mana—how could he have forgotten Aleron?—Siav turned to look at them, and its (her) mouth wasn’t mobile enough to smile but Xavier thought she might be smiling anyway.

 _It. Her._ It hit Xavier like a blow: this was Al. This—nine feet of solid muscle and snake-scales and huge parchment-like wings. Xavier couldn’t imagine kissing this creature, or holding it. Those ill-looking eyes—could they really have Al behind them? The man who’d read aloud to him while he lifted weights, and rescued an injured rabbit on their one and only road-trip, who doodled on his own hands and always burned the pasta—how could he be inside this? How could that savage jaw shape Aleron’s smile, how could those huge clawed hands channel the grace and gentleness of Al’s hands?

He’d tried to think about it, but now for the first time it hit him that Al _wasn’t human_. If Al was a woman—shit, it was insane, but it was just barely comprehensible. Just. But he—she—wasn’t human. This thing, this creature—it, she, was like nothing he’d ever imagined. It was not something he could comprehend, was not something he could understand: she was completely and utterly _other_ , foreign in a way that went beyond male and female, black and white, capitalist and communist.

How could the Aleron he’d known exist inside this thing?

It—she—Siavahda—saw him looking, and the maybe-smile vanished. She opened her mouth (flashing him a glimpse of teeth curved like a tiger’s and lined up row after row like a shark’s), but before she could speak she tensed.

Xavier’s gut tightened, afraid that Daeron’s soldiers were coming back, but none of the obiri seemed to think so. Then he realised that Siavahda was staring at something behind him, so he turned to look.

 *

The stink of blood and sweat, rust and unemptied slop buckets was not unfamiliar to Vladishka; her mother had no dungeons or torture chambers, but the stench brought her back to a long-ago cell in a far-away world, and she tightened her hold on Rekeishan reflexively.

No. This time zé was in her arms, not being broken under a werewolf king.

She stepped through the door, and hissed through her teeth.

 *

Cold rippled over Zyvian’s skin as she passed through the portal and moved from sunset to midnight. They had tied soft cloths over the hooves of the horses, but they weren’t needed after all; the ground was soft sand, not stone. Wingbeats came from up above, but she didn’t bother to look; in this lack of light she would never see either sky-cavalry.

She guided her horse away from the portal to make room for those coming through behind her and tried to see where they were, where they should go. The mages had copied the co-ordinates from the Iriel portal Siav had programmed, but that didn’t mean they knew where she had gone, only where she had arrived.

The thick copper bracelet on Zyvian’s left arm turned warm on her wrist, one of the five crystals in it glowing like a candle. She raised it towards her face. “Milanae?”

 _“Can any of yours see anything down there?”_ she asked bluntly. Her words—spoken into the other half of this particular gem and shared with Zyvian by the simplest of sympathetic magics—were business-like, empty of all earlier playfulness.

“Well, I can’t,” Zyvian admitted. “I doubt any of us day-dwellers are going to have an easy time of this.” The kind of spells required for night vision were complex in the extreme, requiring, at best, a temporary editing of an individual’s biology. Not something she could institute army-wide in the short-term.

 _“We should pair up,”_ Milanae suggested after a moment. _“Each of my captains will communicate with one of yours, and the_ kucandrin _’s, too. Or can. You’re in charge here.”_ There was that playfulness again. 

Zyvian wondered what the hrimthurren had done with their bands of dark glass. Pocketed them? “Do it,” she said bluntly. “Can you see anything Siav might have headed towards?”

 _“Oh, yes,”_ she replied without missing a beat. _“Probably that great big floating fortress over there. Due south-south-west,”_ she added.

Zyvian looked, but it was nearly pitch black. Either this world had no stars or it was a cloudy night.

“Probably that,” she agreed wryly. “Think you can lead us to it?”

 _“Yes,”_ Milanae said simply. _“Or rather, to the shore closest to it. But what is your plan? Are we breaking in and whisking Siavahda out from under their noses? Or is this going to require flash and fire?”_

“Flash and fire.” Zyvian looked south-south-west, guided by the compass-charm in the bracelet. “Let’s give them something to worry about.”

 *

There was nothing. The room was empty. Just a couple of chairs, and a desk with a rose standing sentinel-like in a vase carved of a single shell.

Xavier looked back just in time to see Siav’s eyes flash a hot, burning white before the same pearly fire took him too.

 *

The room was quiet, warmed by thick, draught-muffling wall hangings in black and white and a well-fed fire pit sunk in the centre of the floor. A bookshelf was set into one wall, neatly stacked with well-thumbed volumes and scrolls, and a desk of polished teak with simple, spartan lines stood by the window with an equally simple chair of equally expensive wood.

It was clearly a room for quiet and contemplation.

The cloud of dark smoke that billowed up from cracks in the floor was appropriately quiet and inappropriately sudden and unexpected; at first a mere curling wisp, it rapidly grew into a swollen ebony whirlwind that nearly filled the room.

And then it abruptly shrank, and solidified; Daeron fell to the floor with a gasp, clutching his bleeding shoulder with white-knuckled fingers.

“Kuvalai take him,” he hissed viciously, hair damp with pain-sweat. Worrying green, threads were spreading from his wound under the skin, and it was a struggle to get back onto his feet—but even with no one to hear he kept his pain to himself. “Take _all_ of them!”

His eyes were wide and wild by the time he stumbled to the cabinet on the other side of the room, flinging open the doors glittering with feystone, but not from the agony. No, the reason he had to restrain himself from tossing precious potions and elixirs to the floor as he searched for the right one was not pain, but anger. Fury.

How _dare_ Zesangre speak Nerro’s name? And _how_ had his nephew and the human overcome his powers?

It was a close thing by the time his fingers finally closed on the anti-venom. Daeron nearly didn’t notice; when he did, he forced himself to focus.

 _Itele_. One of the most interesting poisons in the known worlds. With the anti-venom in his hand, pouring over and into the bloody mess the broken _bysenthe_ had made of his shoulder, he could almost appreciate it. Chemical processes in the brain, triggered by mood, altered the property of the poison—so that it often wasn’t a poison at all.

He snarled under his breath as steam rose up from the injury under the liquid. But it had been when she had bitten him. _Bitten_ him! _Obiri_ used their teeth, _obiri_ took prey. Filthy draconian savages ought to stay in their dust and deserts!

The knots in his lungs loosened as the anti-venom did its work, but he needed to feed. Badly. The potion would do nothing for the bite itself, or the wounds in his back and thigh. His immortal blood made him harder to cripple, but wouldn’t heal him. For that, he needed someone else’s blood.

 _Or Merihim_. But his half-sister had her own mission, and it wasn’t yet time to call her home.

Fire ripped past the window, a roaring river illuminating the night.

Eyes narrowing, Daeron swept a wave of Keeping through the castle, tearing into every mind within his reach as his hunger crystallised into something cold and clear—

**_Enemies outside. To stations!_ **

His fangs gleamed in the firelight, from the pit and the window. Under the red glow his flesh knitted and smoothed out like poured cream. _I’ll give you something to think about_ , he hissed silently. _Something to_ remember _!_

His next words shot to his brother. _*Find me someone to eat!*_

 *

 _Nakir_.

Gently, Vladishka lay Rekeishan down on the cleanest patch of floor she could see, careful not to disturb zém. But the surprise had shocked her straight out of the red place, and once her _nejika_ was on the ground she leapt deeper into the cell, lithe and easy as a big cat.

Crouching in the straw, she lifted a hand to the prisoner’s face where he sat against a wall. “Nakir?” she whispered. Her fingers touched scales, traced the familiar whorl of deepest ebony and white on his jaw, a pattern that spread all over his body and flared into a forest of spirals and Celtic-like knots on his wings.

She glanced at them and hissed again, flinching back at the sight. She remembered a huge wingspan, powerful enough for a young Nakir to carry his friends into the air for short flights: now there was fifty-two _sen_ of ruined, broken bones and tattered wing-skin. The neat joints where each wing could fold up like a lady’s fan had been nailed together, rough spikes driven through the bone to hold each wing closed. They hadn’t needed to do it; all they held closed was the very frame of the wing. The deceptively delicate membrane, and the powerful muscles that spanned and manipulated it, were completely rotted away.

Vladishka had seen healers perform miracles, but one look was all she needed. Nakir was never going to fly again.

Swallowing her rage, Vladishka grasped Nakir’s jaw tightly. Grounded or not, she would cut her own throat before she left him here—but he would not wake. When she shook him harder, snarling with frustration, he moved in her grip like a boneless doll might, and his eyelids never so much as twitched.

She glanced back to where Rekeishan waited, equally unconscious. How long before someone noticed the dead guards, the shattered doors? How many would come to investigate the wards she had broken on the two cells, first Rek’s, now Nakir’s? Would she be able to get them all out?

She had to. She _would not_ leave Nakir here!

But, she realised abruptly, Nakir _wasn’t_ here. Siav, Siav had said something— _Daeron had him incarnated, on Earth, in a human body_.

Xavier. Xavier was Nakir, just as Al was—had been—Siav. Nakir without his memories.

She didn’t need to take Nakir’s body: her friend, Siav’s _nejika_ , was already safe. But if she left it here, Daeron could pull him back into it, make him a prisoner again. Kill him for real, this time.

Decision made, she reached up and snapped Nakir’s neck.

She was flitting from the dungeon with Rek in her arms before the poor, tattered corpse slumped to the ground.


	18. Interlude the Second: Vision

_Silver diamond rose blossom, rosebud against midnight dark hair, soft silky, diamond-glittered night-bird wings, eyes that change colour as you watch, violet opal emerald azure teal grey, a crystal dolphin with dragonfly wings, sense of wild freedom tinted with tears, the world seen through skewed glass, incomprehension, dismissive, beauty, knowledge of a different kind._

_Life by different rules._

* * *

_A set of scales, forming melting shaping into another shape, a boy with blank eyes white hair, aura of strength so strong burning lightning earthquake who is he who is he? Barefoot, walking the edge of a knife a sword, on one side eye-burning light, on the other greedy darkness. He tries to walk, but a rope around his ankle is pulling at him, tugging him towards the dark. A collar of diamond and obsidian around his neck, shiny polished._

* * *

_The first death in this war, the first that strikes out at her heart. Two in one, and one of two must die so the other can live, take her hand to face the armies coming for them all. An obiri lord, snarling, pacing a locked room, gouging deep into the door, slamming his hands against the wards that keep him in, before collapsing to the ground, weeping._

* * *

_A gate with five locks smashed into broken stone, ichor god-blood running over the crumbled rock, glittering in the half-light. A crystal spider, small as a finger-nail, perched in the palm of a girl that seems familiar, the fingers curling around the insect to crush it into shining dust._

* * *

_Herself, power gathering, air before a disaster, tsunami earthquake storm, trembling shaking with restraint, with strength, unleashed in one blast, tearing through everything, smashing breaking destroying. Backlash that whips towards, and before it can hit, joining two halves of a glowing rope, sealing fate with death._

* * *

_A boy and a girl, twins with different bloods, shapestrong, yin and yang. Four parents for them—draco and kern-rois, mongrel and obiri, life-threads that separate, joined by a red-and-white pendant years after they come apart. A treasure box, timing spells, her crest on the lid, nineteen years from now. The boy crying, fighting the dark in his own heart, his sister’s arms around his shoulders, her face pale and scared._

_A boy and a girl, obiri and arkadian, crowned with onyx in shadows. The boy-twin coming to their palace, pleading eyes and tears, their mother protecting him from Duranki all around—because his own isn’t there, isn’t anywhere anymore. All of them, all four, sharing a dream—a dream of a silver heart beating in the darkness._

* * *

The vision ends.

And the Seeker breaks.


	19. Breaking and Awakening

_“When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.”—Mae West_

 

Agony erupted like a nuclear blast in every cell of his body, and Xavier dropped to the ground mid-breath, no air to even scream as he clutched his head and fell against the glassy floor, limp and helpless as a baby. Voices rose in alarm, distantly, somewhere far away, but his ears were blocked up with a wild, rushing roar and he writhed, trying to scream, clawing at his arms and face and shoulders in an animalistic attempt to _get away_ , to _make it stop_ , to _get out_ of his body and escape; it was being forced into him, a thunderstorm into a battery/an ocean into a thimble/a sun into a lightbulb and he was _breaking_ , his skin was on fire/bones melting/blood evaporating and there was no _air_ , he couldn’t _hold it_ , couldn’t _contain_ it, too much, the molecular structure of his body was dissolving in acid—

He vomited blood, felt the red warmth of it on his lips and trailing from his eyes, weeping it, it was squeezing out from every pore and oh goddess please make it stop make it stop make me die just make it STOP—

It didn’t want to be in him, didn’t fit, he couldn’t _hold it_ , it was his antithesis, it was white and bright and _other_ , opposite, intrinsically opposed to him and everything he was and please please MAKE IT STOP, but it _pushed_ , was pushed, being forced into him he was going to shatter shatter break _break_ —

Please let me break let it be over let it STOP—

Wordless nameless nothing no one only _agony_ —

“There’s no time!” Hurried, frantic whispers, low voices hissing like electricity above his head, back and forth on currents of haste and fear, and he could barely hear them for the images running like a film reel before his eyes _(or is it in his head, is this what going insane is like?)_ “She needs—” “The fomoiri—!” “—Daeron will—” “—I don’t know, there is—” “—Vladishka—” “—nothing I can do—”

Abruptly something in him gave way. He felt it, like skin breaking or an eye popping, something deceptively delicate but utterly vital just _snapping_ like thinly stretched clingfilm—and abruptly there was more room, more space for the thing flooding him up. Like knocking through a wall or converting the basement, suddenly there was somewhere for it to _go_ , and it spilled in like water.

And like being in water—rising through water—the pressure eased. But if you can’t breathe, it’s still drowning.

Hours and hours later, the pain easing bit by bit, the rushing power filling his new space slowing incrementally, and he felt full and raw and raped, ripped apart by this _thing_ , this white-hot thing that had forced its way into him. Gradually it settled, but he was a water-balloon filled too much; one wrong move, and the thin elastic would burst. Even breathing, the tiny up-and-down of his chest as he started to realise he still had a body, felt risky and dangerous.

He found his mouth. “What...?” It tasted awful, like sick and rotting things.

“We have to leave.” Kheylan, but not as Kheylan had ever seen or heard him: frantic and afraid, amethyst eyes wide. “Now.”

Xavier felt as weak as wet paper, and the thought of moving made him want to cry. He was so _full_ —sickly, disgustingly full, stretched tight and unbearably sore. He was feeling the radiation poisoning of the nuclear bomb now.

“I don’t think I can get up,” he muttered, shame almost burning him worse when Kheylan knelt beside him to ask.

Wordlessly, the obiri princeling bent over Xavier’s prone body and touched his thumb to the _drac_ _ŭlan_ shining quietly on his left wrist.

When energy—salty and clean like seawater—poured into his system like coffee into a mug, Xavier wondered if this was what that first hit of coke felt like.

Someone was lifting Siavahda’s limp dragon-body from where it lay like a cast-off cloak on the floor, blue light wrapping around her—to make her heavy body lighter?

Kheylan silently offered him his hand, and pulled him to his feet when Xavier took it.

 *

Vladishka heard the soldiers before she saw them, but there was nowhere else to go. Backwards led back to the dungeon and Nakir’s corpse, and her vague memory of how to get out depended on this corridor.

_Vesh’dar curse them!_

She glanced down at Rekeishan in her arms, worried. She couldn’t fight carrying zém. She might not be able to fight at all—Warrior or not, she was still mortal, and recovering her _nejika_ hadn’t given her back her energy. It just made her sane enough to see how screwed they were.

 _Vesh’dar, if you’re listening,_ she prayed, backtracking a little so she could hide Rekeishan in a little alcove, _don’t let anything happen to zém!_

With that she summoned the Spear. Maybe Daeron’s soldiers would be afraid of it enough that she and Rek could get away quickly, without much of a fight.

The Spear trembled like a branch in the wind in her grip, but she took a breath and turned the corner with a shout.

They didn’t scatter as she’d hoped. Maybe they were under Keeping; Siav would have known. Vladishka didn’t care. Worse, they were well-trained. Humans had the strange idea that fights only happened one-on-one, that even when the enemy was a group, the hero only had to deal with one at a time. Well, these fomoiri had clearly never seen those films because they swarmed her at once.

It wasn’t flashy and pretty, but desperate; the only thing keeping her in one piece was her speed. She clawed at her reserves to spin and side-step and duck, trying to keep her wavering attention on five or six opponents at once and laying about herself with the Spear.

She was not going to fall here, alone and unmourned with no one to tell her story.

She was not going to fail because soulmates died with each other and Rek was going to have a long—happy—life!

She was not going to die here in this stinking—fomoiri—maze!

She hammered the Spearbutt into a throat, _duck dodge knife snarl side-step jump elbow Spearhead whirl duck_ , kill them, kill them _all_ , Rek was lying just a few _snakai_ away hurt and defenceless, zé needed her, she would not let zém down, she _would not!_

The red erupted from the pit of her stomach, sweeping over her like a blast zone and she screamed with rage, white-hot and furious, how dare they, _HOW DARE THEY_ , the Spear spun like the wind in her hands—

A shooting pain darted up from her thigh, barely registering; she ripped the blade out of her leg and punched it through the bastard’s armour, gutting another with the Spear before the pain really burned.

She threw herself onto the floor to gain herself a few seconds and clutched the wound. The blood was burning, hissing as it ran over her fingers—poisoned.

The red haze vanished, replaced by the dark outpouring of wet and slippery colour.

 _No_.

Sudden and loud a blast shook the walls around her, a bomb in the enclosed space. Fire and lightning ripped through the air at chest-level, scything through the fomoiri like stalks of silver wheat. If they screamed, she didn’t hear it over the ringing in her ears.

 _Good thing I dropped_ , she thought sluggishly, watching as they fell, burnt barbeque cast aside smoking. 

And then someone was pulling her to her feet while blood dripped into her eyes from where someone had cut across her forehead—she hadn’t ducked far enough down, but at least they hadn’t gotten her throat.

“About time you got here, ’Daris,” she said weakly. Blinking, she caught sight of Rekeishan in his arms, and a wave of relief washed over her; she opened her arms to take zém automatically.

“I think perhaps you should let me carry zém,” Bruadaris told her gently. His expression turned business-like. “Where and what?”

“My thigh. Some kind of poison.” She glanced at the fallen soldiers. “Are they safe to feed from?”

He shrugged, setting Rekeishan down gently so he could examine Vladishka’s wounds. “Not my favourite vintage,” he said wryly. “But nutritious enough.” His slender fingers—not a soldier’s hand, that—gently palpitated her wound, making her hiss.

“I meant are they safe to drink after whatever you cast,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Mm? Yes, of course.” Daris’s fingers spread wide. Slim ribbons of green and white light jumped between his fingertips and the pulse in his wrist, drawing a jointed circle around her injury. When he pulled his hand back, the light poured towards the centre of the circle, sliding into her wound like bleeding in reverse. “I may be a Vovim, but I am still an obiri. I would never leave a corpse unfit for drinking.”

His words were light, but Vladishka glanced at him sharply.

“In that case,” she said slowly, the pain in her leg fading rapidly, “I’m starving.” Her thigh held her when she got to her feet, and then she fell on the closest body, fingers curled to hungry claws as her fangs tore into a fomoire’s unprotected neck.

The blood was still warm, for which she was grateful—cold, congealing blood was the foulest thing imaginable—but hard to drink without a heartbeat pumping it through the veins. Worse, it sat heavy and worthless in her stomach, until she pulled away in disgust and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Useless,” she said bitterly. “The mana’s already gone.” She ought to have expected it, she knew—there was a reason obiri bled their kills immediately instead of waiting even the handful of minutes healing her had taken—but the dead, empty blood was making her feel sick, and she was so, so tired. How much longer until she could fall into a bed?

“There’s always me,” Bruadaris said idly, his eyes on Rekeishan. “If you...”

Vladishka schooled herself not to flinch or stare. “I’ll live,” she said lightly, carefully dancing around the precipice. She didn’t say the words that hung between them like stones weighing down a thread line; that in his blood was a dark god’s ichor and she didn’t want it in her body, that she was afraid of what it might do to her; that obiri blood was almost as useless as dead blood, that the only reason for obiri to feed on obiri was for the pleasure in the bite, for sex or handfasting, for a deeper kind of love than they shared anymore.

He shrugged as though it were nothing, just a thought.

Or at least, the kind of love she didn’t have for him.

“What are you orders?” she asked, her voice professional. “Am I going to have to watch my back?”

“His words were ‘take Vladishka’,” Bruadaris said after a moment. She understood it was painful, shameful, for him to talk about this—to acknowledge the power Daeron had over him—but there was nothing for it; she had to know. “I assumed he intended for me to take you to the front door.”

She grinned, and he grinned back.

 *

“Lock it down!” Zyvian ordered, and at her word the magery of the kern-rois swept out from the shore towards the glittering spires of Inis Vitrin. The night-darkened waves froze in place mid-crash, the sound of the surf abruptly silenced; like the breath of a frost-dragon, ice spread upon the waters, reached out and caught the fomoire stronghold in a grip of diamond and adamant. Zyvian couldn’t see it, but she knew the cold spread down, thick and strong, trapping the sea-castle in place like an insect in palest amber. Inis Vitrin would not be able to sail away from this fight, or release its fast, deadly ships from its ice-locked docks. Its hippokampoi-cavalry would be useless now, its warriors unable to dart in and out of the waters like seals to snatch and drag her own soldiers beneath the waves.

She allowed herself a small smile. She had had many years to plan for how the fomoiri sea-fortresses might be taken. In the end, it was as simple as this.

The deep, thrumming song of a conch horn spiralled from one of the towers, and coloured lights began to light across the fortress.

 _“I think they’ve noticed us,”_ Milanae said wryly from above.

“I’d be disappointed if they hadn’t. _Eloi_ , can you hear me?”

 _“Perfectly,”_ her adopted father’s voice assured her.

“Milanae, I want the hrimthurren mages to cast frostfire beacons for us. You and yours might be able to see what’s going on, but the rest of us are nearly blind. Then attack the towers; I want all that pretty glass reduced to burning slag. _Eloi_ , when the fomoiri start coming out your archers are to pick off as many as they can before the rest of us engage.”

 _“Acknowledged,”_ Enandir answered.

 _“Consider it done,”_ Milanae echoed.

“And send pairs of hrimthurren-rois scouts to check the area,” Zyvian added. “If Daeron summons reinforcements I would appreciate knowing _before_ they arrive on my flank.”

They repeated their acknowledgement of her orders, and Zyvian went on to direct her other commanders. The moment the sea had begun to freeze her warriors had gone onto the ice, were even now galloping on mounts trained and shod for this kind of fighting or skating on bladed feet to surround the fortress like the five points of a pentagram. Blue and silver flames tore down from the sky to catch fire on the ice, the hrimthurren’s spells turning Inis Vitrin into shadowed sapphire and opal—and white, searing fire streaked for the towers, a star-shower of super-heated flame as Milanae’s dragons began their attack.

Time to dismount. Zyvian landed lightly on her feet and handed off the reins of her horse to a page. “Cohorts, sound off,” she ordered through her bracelet.

_“Earth cohort in position.”_

_“Air in place.”_

_“Fire ready.”_

_“Water set to go.”_

_“Akasha waiting for your signal.”_

“Hold positions.” Lowering the transmission-bracelet, Zyvian grew two long, slightly curved blades from her seraph-armour, the edge of each sword as wicked as a kiss. Her mages stood behind her, legs and arms braced, waiting for her command.

The crystal spires glowed with heat. Here and there, patches of individual towers were beginning to turn gold, and red. Soon they would run like water.

In other circumstances, Zyvian might have mourned the destruction of such a beautiful building. But they had her AnKi-ja-morë in there. They could have mercy when she had her princess back.

She was more warrior than mage, but she still wore the rudra-roisen around her eyes; when Inis Vitrin’s wards fell like angels beneath the onslaught of dragonfire, she felt it like a hammer blow.

 _Here they come_ , she thought to himself. The fomoiri would have to face them now, spill from their fortress like rats from a sinking ship, or do nothing to prevent their castle’s destruction. She did not feel calm, or eager, as she accepted this. The tales that claimed great warriors felt serene or excited before battle lied. She was afraid, as she always was, as anyone with sense was. With An locked away, rebirth was no certainty; death could as easily bring oblivion as paradise, and the thought of it made her tremble, just slightly. But her hands remained steady; this was in deadly earnest. _You’d better take advantage of the distraction we’re giving you, Siav._

The fomoire soldiers began to appear from within the glass fortress, marching in loose formation. Zyvian barely had time to register the glint of light on their armour before the air around them hailed with arrows. Dimly, she heard their shouts of alarm, but she and hers stood too far away to hear aught else.

 _“Now!”_ she cried, and slashed the air in front of her with one of her swords. At her signal one of the watching hrimthurren blew two short, sharp blasts on a horn.

_Engage!_

 *

Vladishka’s head snapped to the side. “Did you hear that?” she demanded.

“Yes.” Bruadaris scooped Rekeishan into his arms and stood up. They both knew that sound, and without another word they flit towards it.

 *

“What the hell was that?” Xavier asked, keeping his voice low.

Kheylan was walking a little hunched over, one hand pressed to his bloodstained belly, but his eyes glittered, had done since _that sound_ had broken over them like a wave. “Dragon horn,” he answered just as quietly, brusquely.

 _“What?”_ Jesus fucking Christ, there were _dragons_ here?!

Kheylan either didn’t realise or didn’t care that Xavier was seriously contemplating having a panic attack. “It means,” he said quietly, excitement drawing strange lines on his face, “that there is fighting on Daeron’s doorstep.”

It took an almost physical effort to drag his mind away from _not just vampires and flying horses but DRAGONS_. “Are we friends with them, or are we going to walk onto a battlefield when we get out of here?”

“There are only two sides in this war,” Kheylan told him, and then the Dracula snapped at them to be quiet.

 *

“Zyvian! Get down!”

She ducked obediently. The hairs on the back of her neck shivered in the harsh breeze that blew over her, quickly warmed by the sudden spray of hot, wet blood as the foes around her lost their heads.

She raised her fist—and bloody sword—in thanks before whirling to plunge a blade through a soldier’s stomach, taking a blow to her shoulder as she reclaimed her weapon.

Cursing, she threw a hex at the soldier, managing to get most of the spell through his not-fast-enough reactive armour and making short work of him before swinging her other arm in an arc behind her, the double-bladed sword cutting through an enemy arm like hot butter.

Was it never going to end? It already felt like they’d been fighting for hours, when the battle had begun only minutes ago. But that was the way of it between the Annunaki—made either devastatingly quick or agonisingly slow by spells and strength and speed. Already the ice was slick and crimson with blood and gore, the corpses of the dead and dying scattered around the place like litter, easy to trip over if you weren’t watching closely enough. But few of them were kern-rois; the seraph-armour was working perfectly.

And of course, she’d only seen four dead hrimthurren. Most of them were up in the sky, out of range of the enemy bowmen but easily able to throw down hexes and curses, or sweep over the knots of struggling forces to roast them in their armour.

Apparently, those blue-black dragons shared their riders’ racial-power of invisibility. The fomoiri had no idea where to shoot.

She grew another blade from her elbow and pierced an enemy’s chest; retracted it and brought her hand-sword around to cut another man’s legs from under him, slashing at his hamstrings as her suit leapt up to swallow her head in an instant, deflecting a sweeping cut that would have given her far too close of a hair-cut.

The noise was all-consuming. Metal on metal, the hissing spit of hexes flying through the air, the smooth ringing of curses flying back and forth raining from the invisible legions in the air, screams and shrieks of the dead and dying, the harsh screeching-scratch of the kern-rois skates on the ice.

It seemed that the fomoiri should be losing. Almost every body that fell to the ground was one of theirs, their armour no more than a formality, doing nothing to defend against the kern-rois’ spell-inlaid blades. It was only that there were so _many_ of them.

And Zyvian hadn’t brought the entire rois army. Just as Milanae had left most of her forces at home. They shouldn’t have been _needed_.

She thrust forward, skilfully sliding her blade through a gap in the ribcage, cutting through the spine so that the man went limp on her sword as Zyvian parried a blow from the side, sliding her blade out and away to catch a crystal-inlaid sword coming in an overhead swing.

 *

For a moment, the two obiri stared at the chaos outside, Bruadaris’ hand still on the door.

“This is as far as I go,” he said finally, when it became apparent that Vladishka wasn’t going to say farewell. “Will you be able to carry Rek?” It had required some juggling, getting his hand on the door while bearing the arkadian’s weight. But Vee didn’t have the skill or power to get through the wards on it.

She opened her mouth to answer. Paused. “No,” she said. “I can’t. Not through _that_.” She waved her hand at the clashing soldiers. The noise of the fighting was muffled by the last of the wards around the castle’s base, turning it into a silent play.

He snapped his head around to look at her, incredulous. “Vee—” he said warningly.

“Maybe Daeron meant ‘take her home’,” she cut across him, daring him to contradict her. “Did you think of that?”

The moment it occurred to him he felt a familiar lurch in his stomach. “You...” He couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t believe she would do this. “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”

Her eyes flashed at him. “Do you really want to stay here?” she demanded. “Vesh’dar _damn it_ , Daris, all it would take is one mistake and the game would be up!”

“What?”

She hissed with frustration. “A human saying. Never mind. My point is, someday Daeron is going to work out that you’re the one passing us all of his plans. What do you think he’s going to do to you?”

_Swallow my soul and play my body like a puppet; and do you know, that will still be better than watching you swoon after your pathetic shapeshifter!_

His lips parted in a snarl, ready to spit the words out; but at the last moment he stopped himself. Too late. Her face told him she knew what he’d been about to say.

“It’s too late, anyway,” she said softly, and pointed at the door. At his hand on it.

He stared at it for a moment—and then cursed viciously. “You _jekra_ ,” he said bitterly. His hand on the door. The signature of his mana on the wards.

Daeron would know. When they checked the wards they would know who had opened it and who had passed through it, and it would sign his death sentence. Except that Daeron would _never_ let him die.

Vladishka said nothing more, just beckoned for him to follow. For a moment he stared at her back, more than a little amazed at the trust in the gesture. He had Rekeishan in his arms, a straight shot at her spine. He could turn and walk back inside, and if he gave Rek to Daeron he could probably escape punishment.

She knew all that, and she still trusted him.

Funny. He wasn’t at all sure he trusted himself.

 *

The moment they stepped through the outer wards, Vladishka’s ears were assaulted by a barrage of sound: screams and the clash of metal, the _whoosh_ of dragon wings overhead and the crackle and roar of the bonfires lit and scattered through the ranks, illuminating the fighting. But she ignored all of it, trying to work out who had come to Siav’s rescue.

“It’s the kern-rois!” she shouted over the din. They would have to find...Zyvian, her mind supplied helpfully. Aivorn. Enandir. They had to find one of them, had to let them know that Siav was still inside.

 _You can’t help her,_ Vladishka told herself, crushing the guilt into a ball and throwing it away. _You’d only get yourself caught or killed. She’s smart enough to get out._ And if she wasn’t, then no doubt Aivorn would be willing to take on Daeron all by himself to save his beloved Seeker.

 _*Can you find Zyvian or Enandir?*_ she asked Daris mind to mind.

 _*Yes.*_ His mind was cold, angry and inhospitable to her, but she felt his attention divert, split away and cast over the battlefield like a net. Mental-magery, the one kind of mana-working most obiri had any kind of skill with, and Daris wasn’t just some obiri off the streets of Amarande. She felt his hooks catch within seconds. _*I have Enandir.*_

 _*Tell him that we’re out, but Siav is still somewhere inside_ , _*_ she ordered. And it was an order. He might be a Vovim, but as he had pointed out, he was still obiri, and that made her his AnKi-ja-morë. _*And that she might need help.*_

_*He wants to know if we need any.*_

Vladishka took another glance at the kern-rois and fomoiri soldiers. Someone would notice them soon, standing in the shadow of Daeron’s big, dramatic castle. _*An escort would be nice.*_

 _*He says one will come, and we should wait until it does.*_ A pause. _*I told him Rekeishan would need a healer.*_

There were no words. _*Thank you.*_ It was all she could say.

He didn’t answer, but an invisibility shield slid around them like a bubble of glass, hiding them from notice. It felt like an answer.

 *

Duck, thrust, parry, spin, whirl, bring your arm up to slash at a shoulder, catch the soulhole in the back with a painful hex, duck again and swing your leg to trip him up, drive your sword through his throat as he goes down.

Don’t stop moving. Spin, both arms out, catch three of them at once, deep gashes running through their chests. Don’t wonder why their armour is so weak, just duck that and cross your blades to catch that blow, trip _him_ and slash _her_ , toss a curse into _her_ face and kick _him_ in the shin, parry a thrust, feint, gut the one who’s gone down.

Drop to the ground when you see the curse flying at you, let the fomoiri catch it instead, get them while they’re screaming. Hamstring that one while you’re down here, scramble to your feet and just take the blow to your back, let it slide off the armour, get him back with a feint-parry-thrust combo the obiri taught you years ago.

You’re clear for a minute, so look up to see where your friends are. There’s a flicker in the corner of your eye like air on a hot day, and you’re pretty sure it’s an invisible hrimthurren– and you’re right, because as you parry a thrust and get back into the fight, Tren, Milanae’s second-in-command, shimmers into existence above you in the air, leaping from nothing to land beside you, swinging her blade in an arc, following it with a cut-hex, slicing through flesh and bone like water giving way to stone.

)0(

“Zyvian? Are you all right?”

She blinked, once-twice, automatically raising her arm to block a blow and let Tren thrust past her with his blade to stab through a throat. She covered her back with a slashing swipe that cut off an attacker’s sword-hand.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she answered quickly, ducking and stabbing forward at the same time, darting her leg out to slash at an enemy with the blade of her skate.

“Good,” he said, swinging his sword in an arc, following it up with a swipe from his other hand that was covered in a clawed metal glove, slashing through a helm like paper. “Your _kucandrin_ had a message for you. Vladishka is out, but she needs a healer.”

Zyvian ducked another blow as she threw a curse towards the woman to her right, not stopping to watch her crumple as she leapt over the sword that would have hamstrung her. “Siav’s not with her, is she?” She was glad Enandir had sent a messenger. There was no time to answer her bracelet in the middle of a battle.

“No, she’s still inside.” Tren ducked yet another blow to the head, answering the attack with a blurring parry-slash.

“Right.” Zyvian tried to think quickly as she threw a hex into a fomoire’s face. “If you and yours can provide a distraction—” she crossed her swords to catch a blade, buckling under the pressure for a moment before throwing herself to one side, letting the man’s weight carry him forward and impale him on Zyvian’s waiting blade, “—then I’ll go in and get them.” It would be easier to send Aivorn, but Zyvian’s twin couldn’t be trusted with Siav in danger. There was no telling what he would do.

“We can do that.” Tren darted like a bird, almost dancing around his opponents. But then, he’d been on dragon-back; he was fresher than Zyvian was. “Would you like some help getting away from here?”

“That would be most helpful,” Zyvian drawled, and he flashed a grin at her. The firelight reflected on the glass around his eyes. He must have put it on again to come near the flames.

He put his fingers to his lips—the ungloved hand—and whistled sharply. Zyvian just had time to hear the heavy beating of dragon wings before he was grabbing her hand and pulling, pulling _up_ , and either hrimthurren could really jump or he’d cast a spell without Zyvian’s noticing, because they were in the air and Tren swung himself onto an invisible saddle, on an invisible dragon, and Zyvian grabbed him around the waist and told herself firmly not to look down.

Minutes later Tren deposited her behind the lines, immediately disappearing back into the sky. By then the two of them had formed a plan of action, and Zyvian got down to work, quickly selecting a handful of soldiers and mages to form a crack-team while Milanae communicated with captains on the ground and in the air.

 _“Ready?”_ she asked her.

“Just waiting on you,” Zyvian told her through her bracelet.

_“I sincerely hope you mean that!”_

A roar shook the air, and a waterfall of white-hot flame plunged out of the sky, six or seven dragons scouring a wide path of devastation over the field. Screams rang out, but only a few were kern. The captains had managed to get most of their soldiers away.

“Now!” Zyvian ordered, and somehow her little group heard her. They skated furiously, all of them tired and bloodstained and grimly dodging around the charred or still-burning corpses, taking this road of the dead the hrimthurren had carved for them. Arrows rained down from above, driving back the fomoiri seeking to close the gap, but it wasn’t enough; before the end they had to engage the enemy, a brief, furious skirmish involving as much elbowing and kicks as swords. Two men and a mage died, and it would have been more if the senrima-cavalry hadn’t intervened, repeatedly sweeping low with their arrows and heavy throwing-spears.

But they were through. Just.

*

Freshly-fed, Daeron froze, heart in his throat as chunks of broken crystal tower tumbled past his window. The fortress—they were attacking the building, not just his army—and that meant—it meant—

An icy rage that could have swallowed suns swept over him, wedding a breath-stopping fear; and he lashed out, his mind sweeping through the castle and punching into the coach-sized crystal hidden in a secret basement, releasing the power stored there without a second thought.

_I **will not** let you hurt him!_

The backlash smashed him to his knees and burned through him like acid, but he ignored it, hand clenched on the edge of the table, knuckles white as pearl. Outside a star-shower of curses and hexes flew about the battlefield like glowing jewels, and he released the gem-stored power like a hawk into a flock of sparrows.

 _You **will not**_ , he hissed silently. _You **shall not!**_

 *

 _“Eloi!”_ Aivorn shouted, jerking the reins of his senrima harshly, diving down to hover next to the _kucandrin_ ’s.

Enandir lowered his bow and glanced over, concern and frustration at war over his face. “What?”

Without a word Aivorn gestured at his armour. The runes etched into the metal were glowing bright as flames. So were those on his eloi’s armour, and those of the other senrima riders.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” Enandir muttered, glancing back down to the factions on the ground. “What do you think it is?”

Aivorn answered without hesitation. “The runes are tapping into power. Someone must have released a huge amount of mana, one that they haven’t restricted—or not very well.”

“Siavahda would not be so foolish,” Enandir said harshly, dashing Aivorn’s all too obvious hopes at once. “She is on the verge of _kyriká_ , she must be hoarding her mana.”

A sudden pang of pain; but then the cool, cold mask of a warrior slid over Aivorn’s emotions, logic ruling the way it should on a battlefield—or above it, as it were. “Then it’s the other side.”

Enandir nodded, thinking quickly. “We should consult the mages—”

A shattering blast crashed through the forces below them, like a wave sweeping through the water of a lake, a glittering jade shockwave threaded through with long, spear-like daggers of gold. It shook the ground so far below them but passed through everyone and everything, seemingly without damage.

Considering that there had been no break in the fighting, Enandir wondered if most of them even knew something had happened, knew why the ice had shaken beneath their feet.

Suddenly his eyes widened, and he tapped his mount with his heels, ignoring Aivorn for a moment as he dived. Resting dangerously close to the ground, his eyes darted here and there across the fomoiri forces.

Their armour was glowing, the crystal insets tapping whatever power had been offered them. The crystals in the hilts of their blades were like dark flames, sending thick tendrils of strength through the swords that were now slicing through their opponents—through the kern-rois—with ease.

Daeron had turned the tables on them.

 *

Vladishka’s eyes recognised the figure that came clambering up over the scorched and broken bodies, following the shadow of fire.

“Daris, uncast! It’s Zyvian!” Relief poured over her as the shields dissolved; Zyvian’s band started as the invisibility spells lowered and the obiri became visible, but Zyv’s first words were only “Who needs the healer?”

“Rek does.” Vladishka turned to Daris, her attention wholly fixed on her soulmate’s slack, sleeping face. The relief drained away sharply; panic, saw-toothed and hungry, gnawed at her instead. “I don’t know all of zéiz injuries.”

 *

Kacila stepped forward, murmuring assurances as she took Rekeishan and set zém carefully down on the ground, to one side. Vladishka moved with them, hovering anxiously just on the edge of too close. No obiri could fail to know how to avoid being in the way of a healer. They knew all about war—and its consequences.

Which was why Zyvian’s gaze narrowed at the sight of Bruadaris’ face.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded. The runes on their armour had begun glowing just minutes ago, but she hadn’t thought to worry about it until the obiri started staring.

When the Vovim looked up, his expression was so full of fear and despair that Zyvian felt her stomach ice over.

 *

“I managed it last time,” Xavier said finally, interrupting the obiri’s argument. His skin felt clammy and tight, his broken wrist ached badly; whatever Kheylan had done with Xavier’s cuff, the effect had worn off five hundred paces ago. It was a miracle he was still standing—and another miracle that they had finally found the door.

Or _a_ door. Surely there had to be more than one entrance to this place, but if there was none of them could find it.

The Dracula turned to look at him. Her intense gaze would have made Xavier uncomfortable—if he hadn’t already felt uncomfortable enough to crawl out of his own skin. “If you can, then please do so,” she said flatly. There was no disbelief or judgement in her voice: there was no tone at all, even though the words hummed and vibrated in Xavier’s head, subtitled with strange whispers. A side-effect of hearing English when the speaker was blabbing in obiric, apparently. He was getting used to it.

Xavier walked closer to the door. Just that simple movement made his stomach roll, and the urge to be sick was nearly overpowering. His skin throbbed, stretched tight over burnt-white bones.

At least it made it easy to ignore the curious stares when he put his hand on the door, trying to concentrate. His palm was slick with sweat against the glass.

 _Open._ He struggled to visualise it, to believe in it. To believe that it would open. He had to let go of _how_ that would happen, had to not-care about _why_. It was all about knowing that it would, about seeing it, feeling the door swing open under his hand, feeling the elation and relief that he would feel when it did—

But he couldn’t do it. To believe in something was difficult: _making_ yourself believe something even more so, and here and now Xavier just couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t brush aside the shaking fear in his gut that there was something really, truly wrong with him. The pain he felt, the discomfort, the sensation of being overfull—it kept getting in the way. It wouldn’t be dismissed, not even for a moment.

 _Goddess_ fucking _damn it,_ he thought. Frustration, embarrassment with the obiri watching, aching pain and fear and _anger_ —he was so fucking _angry_. Angry with the pain, angry with himself for being afraid, so damn pissed at Al for dragging him into this fucking mess—and Christ in six-inch heels, _he wanted this gods damn fucking door **open**! _

A volcano. An underwater geyser. A nuclear bomb. The fullness stretching his body to breaking point _erupted_ , surging up from every last taut corner and _exploding_ outwards in a supernova of light and sound and heat; his vision dissolved in the flare of white and goddess it was too much, burningburning lightning smashing him apart a whirlwind in his veins a sun being forced down his throat, no, _up_ his throat, up and out of every pore—

 *

The civil war in Kern-Rois had honed Zyvian’s _ilnaiel_ like a whetstone, and when it jabbed her she reacted without thought: she dropped her sword, flung spell-threads at every person she could see, and threw herself backwards, pulling them down to the ground with her.

 _“Tierja!”_ One of the mages gasped angrily. “What—”

Darkest night became brightest day in an instant, a screaming roar of an instant and the heat was like a sun come to earth; it passed over their heads and Zyvian felt the burn of it, felt the scales of metal on her back melt instantly into the leather of her jerkin as it smashed avalanche-like into the tangled sea of soldiers beyond him and his little group. She clenched her eyes shut but the white painted her eyelids even when she pressed her face into the freezing ice, and her armour was screaming at her, desperately trying to adapt enough to cope with the incredible heat.

She heard nothing but the roar of flame and wind.

 *

Vladishka held tight to Rek, covering zém as much as she could in an attempt to protect zém from something she couldn’t fight. Her skin felt like it was on fire.

 *

Bruadaris reactively shielded the moment he felt himself tugged to the ground. He tried to reach out and shield the others too but the blast—the light—the fire—tore his attempts to shreds before they could manifest.

 *

Aivorn and Enandir watched in disbelief and horror as the huge beam of light—a tunnel, a river, a battering ram—punched through the entangled armies.

There were no screams. It simply incinerated everything it touched.

 *

The obiri gathered behind Xavier cowered and cringed from the sun’s worth of light roaring out of him; the power in it smashed their normal, daily shields to pieces and the undiluted UV rays seared their skin and eyes to burning. Even the Dracula jerked back around a corner, into the shadows that offered scant protection.

Kheylan did not. He had no strength to flit, and the wound in his belly prevented the quick retreat his skin screamed for. Instead he moved forward—not quickly, or surely, with his injury dragging at his will and the sunfire searing his skin. But he did not stop, or falter, not even as ash-white streaks scorched through the blackness of his hair, inch by terrible scorched inch. Not even as the blood in his face and extremities cooked in his veins, thickening, darkening, dying, making the tiniest flex of affected muscles sheerest agony. Even as charred white blindness spread across his eyes, turning those amethysts into coarse chalk, he did not falter.

And perhaps his sightlessness was a blessing. Perhaps it made it easier, as he fell against Xavier’s back, to reach shaking hands around the human’s body even as his pale fingers blistered. To fumble his touch along Xavier’s arms, and wrists, and close his own hands over Xavier’s even as he burned.

To whisper below the howl of fire and power, so softly only a soul could hear it, “Xavier. Stop. Come back.”

A world that had never known humankind held its breath.

And released it. The light vanished. Xavier crumpled like a suit of cast-off clothes, boneless, helpless, gone. The abrupt lack of support sent the obiri to the ground with him, the sudden fall jarring his wound. Dark, sluggish blood began to soak through his bandages as he lay on the floor, his breathing quick and pained, a sharp contrast to Xavier’s deep, sleeping breaths.

They lay like that, side by side in a tableau only the gods could fathom, until the Dracula and her own came forward to collect them.


	20. Homeward Bound

_“But if our hopes are betrayed, if we are forced to resist the invasion of our soil, and to defend our threatened homes, this duty, however hard is may be, will find us armed and resolved upon the greatest sacrifices.”—King Albert 2 nd_

 

_“Zyvian! Zyvian, are you all right?”_

Her brother’s voice shouted at her from the half-melted bracelet, warped and twisted around its crystals. Zyvian stared at it for a moment before finding her tongue. “Yes. We—we survived.”

But others hadn’t. Sitting up slowly—her armour had survived, but until it healed itself the charred back restricted her movements—Zyvian saw the devastation the light had caused, a thousand times worse than the fire the hrimthurren had used to cut them a path through.

A few more mumbled reassurances convinced Aivorn that Zyvian was well, and the voice cut off. The others were picking themselves up off the ground, staring uneasily at the briefly silent battlefield. Both kern-rois and fomoiri seemed to be in shock.

 *

Daeron was not there to see his minions falter: he was racing down stairs, through corridors, slipping in and out of hidden doors and secret passages with no care for the battle come to a halt outside. Men and women hailed him, called to him, and went ignored. There was only the shaking in the ground as the enemy dragons and curses threw themselves at the castle, tearing at the towers and the walls.

If the building fell—

It would not. _It would not._ That was madness: it would take far more than a double handful of dragons to tear the fortress down, and still more to bypass the wards he had placed around his heart.

And still, the fear was as wings on his heels.

But when he reached the vault—two miles below the surface of the sea, a dozen times deeper than the lightning-crystal—the wall of spells encapsulating it wasn’t so much as dented. Not so much as scratched.

The relief was nearly all-consuming; he fell against the wall, breathing hard from his run. And yet... And yet, he could not make himself turn around and return to his duties. As irrational as he knew the compulsion to be, he had to be sure.

There were no guards on this door. This entire floor was forbidden to all but himself; he trusted no one with this secret. The only protections here were the wards he had crafted himself, but even his paranoia acknowledged that there was no one alive who could have woven better curses to guard his most priceless treasure. Siavahda might match him for strength of mana, but no mortal teacher could train her in its use—whereas Daeron had had the best of instructors.

The wards let him pass eagerly, and he walked through the wall of enchantments and the material wall of glass as if through curtains of water.

Inside, he stood still.

The chamber was small and dark. Where most of Inis Vitrin was blown of glass opaque and misted, here the walls were clear as air, allowing occupants to look out into the depths of the Gnaisan Sea. Buried so deep below the fortress, the room ought to have been cold, but instead it was warm and humid—and dark, black as ink but for glimmers of rich sapphire light near the floor. Daeron banished the gloom with the smallest of charms, sending a fist-sized sphere of pale blue light to the ceiling to make the shadows dance in gowns of frost.

He knelt down at the edge of the pool the charm revealed, its glow kissing the still water and making it gleam like glass, like the lid of Snow White’s coffin. The human fairytale had grown from truths like this one, from the invisible shields holding the man in the water in stasis—keeping him from aging, halting the progress of his disease, stilling the poison in his blood. Wrapping his sleeping mind in the sweetest dreams Daeron could conjure for him.

Daeron checked the diagnostic spells. All was well, as he had logically known it must be, but he didn’t leave. Still kneeling at the lip of the pool, he stared into the water, his thoughts silenced by the sight of that sleeping face. The blue light caressed skin black as velvet, touched iridescence to the scales gilding the man’s long, powerful tail—scales that might have been hammered from blue goldstone, ebony dusted with flecks of diamond, shards of stars. From his shoulders and hips extended limbs like wings, spreading not into feathers or fingers but rays of cerata, each frond tipped with its own sapphire glow. The same light kissed his clawed fingertips and studded his tail in gems of bioluminescence, streaked the fins wavering in the water like sheets of silk with shimmers of blue. Tendrils as fine and soft—and as poisonous—as a sea anemone’s drifted around his surprisingly delicate face in place of hair, half-obscuring the razored gills at his throat.

When they were open, Nerro’s eyes glowed the same fiery blue as his prey-snaring lights. His lips, flushed from kisses, blazed like blue topaz. But neither radiance was like to catch any time soon.

And this was no time to be maudlin. Nerro was untouched, Inis Vitrin’s foundations were solid, and there was a battle Daeron was meant to be overseeing.

The Vovim left as swiftly as he had come.

 *

Zyvian recovered quickly. Seeing Bruadaris getting to his feet, she stalked over and grabbed him up by his shirt, jerking him off the ground with a snarl.

“Did you know that was coming?” she shouted, fury beating white-hot wings under her skin. _“Did you?”_ She had seen Daris’s face, seen the appalled fear. If the obiri had been faster in delivering a warning, hadn’t drawn it out and been so thorn-kissed _dramatic_ about it—

“Zyvian, put him down.” Vladishka ordered, her words spelled out in frost and fire.

Zyvian ignored her; she had eyes only for Daris. The angry light of her tattoos cast auroric light on the obiri’s face. _“Answer me.”_

“Would it make a difference?” Bruadaris asked bitterly. He didn’t seem at all perturbed to be hanging nearly two sen above the ground by a woman’s fists. “My blood is enough to condemn me, isn’t it?”

“I have not, nor will I ever, curse a man for his ancestry,” Zyvian snapped. “But if you had the chance to save my warriors and didn’t, that’s another matter entirely!” Abruptly disgusted, she dropped the obiri to the ground. They didn’t have time for this.

 *

Vladishka waved off the healer, stoically keeping the wince from her face. “Rek first,” she ordered. “I’ll live.” Unless zé died, she added silently.

Shaking her head to clear it, she gave the healer more room, trying to ignore the smell of charred flesh and the confrontation between Zyvian and Daris. Instead she turned around, tracing the devastation backwards. Where had that light come from? If it was Daeron, if he was closer than they thought—

But no. Her eyes found the door she and Daris had left by, the same one she and Siav had used to enter the fortress in the first place. Now the stone around it was warped with heat, and stumbling through it were—

Obiri culture frowned on excessive displays of emotion, and only a lifetime of such social conditioning kept her from flitting straight to her mother and throwing her arms around her. But she smiled—and then saw the three bodies lying limp and heavy in careful arms.

She did not flit then, either, and her voice was perfectly calm as she said, over her shoulder, “We have Siav.”

 *

“I didn’t know,” Bruadaris said before Zyvian could turn away. “It was...something else. In Vesh’dar’s name, I had no idea that was going to happen. I’m not even sure what it was.”

Zyvian latched onto the important part of that. “Then what was the ‘something else’?” she demanded.

“The armour. Not yours,” he said, as though he knew that Zyvian instantly remembered the runes glowing on her own scale-mail. “The fomoiri’s. It’s been charged with lightning, their armour and their weapons. Daeron’s been harvesting storms for months, and your runes reacted when he released that power to the crystals waiting for it.”

The crystals she’d seen on them, the fomoiri swords and armour... She should have realised: the fomoiri had no history of decorating their battle-armour with gems. Of course the stones had stored energy, anchored spells.

She cursed herself for her idiocy, too late.

“We have Siav.”

Zyvian whirled, incredulous with surprise and shock as she registered the dragon-skinned body being carried by one of the obiri. “Is she all right?”

Vladishka shot her a glare. “Assume so, and get your people out of here,” she said coldly. “You have what you came for. Your priority now should be your soldiers.”

If it had been Aivorn, or her _eloi_ , Zyvian would have snarled. Coming from the foretold Warrior, Zyvian swallowed her pride and nodded. “Go help,” she ordered, and the soldiers and mages who had escorted her raced to do so. Her heart pounded with worry, but she brought her bracelet to her lips rather than go with them. She was no healer; she would just be in the way. “Milanae?”

 _“Oh good, you’re alive,”_ she said, and Zyvian could hear her relief. _“What do you need?”_

“Sound a retreat. We have Siav.”

 *

The bass rumble of a dragon-bone horn vibrated through Daeron’s bones as he reached the upper floors once more, and his eyes narrowed. Quickly moving towards one of the larger windows, he hissed with frustration at seeing the useless mess of his armies.

 _Fight, you fools!_ He snarled, sweeping his power over the field, snatching at all those who carried his brand on their souls. It was an easy thing to infect them with his hate, his rage; they needed only the merest push to begin dancing the blades again.

 _Useless carrion_.

The horn meant a retreat. Well enough—Siavahda and her tattooed heathens could run for the hills as they pleased, he cared nothing for that. Their precious Seeker would be dead in months, a year at most, no matter what they did.

Unless they managed to tear that human male open, and get at the treasure inside.

 _*Harry them,*_ he ordered his commanders down on the ground. He didn’t wait for the chorus of acknowledgement before sweeping from the room. This, he would have to deal with himself.

 *

Vladishka pointed upwards with a jerk of her head. “Enandir’s coming this way.”

Zyvian tried to shut out the sound of screaming and dying soldiers all around her, the hiss and burn of curses and hexes flying past. The smell of burning. The kern-rois were falling back, obedient to the signals of the horns blowing, but it was turning into a bloody mess. The fomoiri’s thunder-charged swords were cutting through the wards on the rois armour like scissors through thread, and although the hrimthurren and senrima archers were covering the retreat, Daeron’s brainwashed fanatics seemed not to care about their own lives.

She tore her eyes away from the field and looked up. It was dark, but she trusted Vladishka’s eyes. “Kacila!” she called one of the mages that had accompanied him. “We need a flare!”

The woman nodded wordlessly. Darting lines of glowing thread slid out from under her polished nails, swirling around her long fingers before springing upwards in a bright sea-green flash. The threads thickened and braided together into a tower of bright light, soaring upwards into the sky to pierce through the dark clouds.

Zyvian flinched at the sudden crackling hiss, but quickly stifled her reaction as all eyes turned to the dark shapes suddenly speeding towards them. Enandir and his troops turned mid-air to come swooping down in a deep, curving dive like the body of a bow.

They stayed in the air instead of landing, and Enandir leapt over the side of his saddle without blinking, landing cat-graceful on his feet. Senrima riders and hrimthurren on their dragons waited above as he moved directly to the Dracula, giving a perfunctory bow before asking “How is she?”

“Inexplicably unconscious,” the obiri King answered instantly. “My healer cannot diagnose or wake her.”

Enandir’s face was a carefully blank mask as he extended his hands in a silent request for Siavahda to be relinquished to him. There was no tension or dispute over it; the obiri carrying the comatose draconian ceded her weight gratefully.

Enandir looked Siav over for a moment, then looked up and nodded to Zyvian. She stepped forward instantly to take Siav. Someone had placed a spell on her body to help with the weight, and Zyvian cradled her carefully against her chest.

“Take some of the dragons, and get Siavahda to Aivorn immediately,” Enandir ordered. “He is waiting at the arkadian portal.”

“Yes _eloi_.” Zyvian dipped her head at the Dracula and gestured for her warriors and mages. The hrimthurren dragon-riders lowered rope ladders, and Zyvian’s guard climbed up, swift and smooth despite their aching bruises.

“Zyvian—take Bruadaris with you.”

Zyvian paused in the act of handing Siavahda up to Kacila. “As you command,” she said after a pause. “Bruadaris, haul yourself up.”

The Vovim looked stunned, but after shooting the Dracula a questioning glance he obeyed, darting up the rope ladder quick as a shadow. Zyvian pulled herself up onto another dragon after Siav and Kacila, and buckled her legs into the saddle. “The others need the portal too,” she pointed out, once everyone was ready.

The Dracula held up a hand before Enandir could speak. “Vladishka and hers will meet you there. But it is best to separate for the moment—it will make it harder on Daeron, should he pursue you.”

This was true, so Zyvian nodded and ordered the hrimthurren to take them away. When they looked back minutes later, they saw the rest of the dragons flying from the departure point, separating into another two groups. Zyvian hoped it would be enough to let them survive.

 *

The dragons flew like shooting stars, so it was only a little later that Zyvian called to Bruadaris across the roaring wind. “We’re almost within sight!”

How Zyvian knew that with such poor night vision, Daris had no idea, but it was true; peering around the hrimthurren rider whose waist he was clutching, he could see the portals, turned to candle flames by the distance. His stomach twisted; the very sight of them made him ill.

 _*Why Arcadia?*_ he asked, sending the question directly to Zyvian’s mind instead of attempting to shout over the wind.

Flying alongside on the other dragon, the rois Siduro started. Obiri were masters of mental magery, but most other races had to forge permanent mind-links to communicate mind to mind. “That’s where Lorellor is based this month,” she called back.

Daris nodded, although Zyvian probably couldn’t see him in the darkness of the sky. Of course Enandir and the others would want Siav treated by the most gifted healer in living memory.

Before he could formulate an answer an anti-light wave swept the field, a shockwave of silver-limned energy that snuffed out the bonfires like a breath. Just as quickly it was sucked back in, a wave crashing in reverse, leaving only the golden lights of the lightning-armour like a constellation down on the ground.

“What was that?” Zyvian demanded, but Daris couldn’t speak.

_Black velvet, cords of silk around his wrists, his throat, sliding over his skin like a loving whisper._

Zyvian’s harried voice; the twisting of the dragons as they tried to get away from the dark mana pouring out of the fortress; the long, careful fingers of the hrimthurren as they tried to calm their mounts. He knew none of it—was locked inside the cage that had held him for years.

And there was no longer any space between the bars.

_A wordless call, a cry of summoning from a place deeper and Darker than any Daeron could ever hope to reach, further from the mortal heart than any the Keeper could brush with his fingertips._

_Calling him, calling._

Dimly he recognized Zyvian’s voice somewhere far away, yelling his name over the screaming winds as the hrimthurren got the dragons back under control, _ssshing_ to them with soft voices and murmured words in their own tongue.

And then light—not the dead fires, not the solar flare that had burned through both armies; a dark light, blackness limned with silver and blue and red, un-glowing behind them—

He didn’t need to see it, but he turned in the saddle anyway, unable not to.

The not-light rose up from the fortress, an enormous pillar that shot upwards into the sky, piercing cloud and stars. Even as he watched it coalesced into another shape, stretching, moulding, extending wings large enough to block out a sun—and then left the ground entirely, disengaged from the anchor of the castle and rose up, beat its wings, flew—

 _He’s coming for me_ , Daris thought in a flash of terror and delight.

But it was not. The creature—phoenix or roc or ziz, he didn’t know birds well and couldn’t tell what real creature, if any, the spell was shaped upon—did not jet towards Bruadaris or even Siavahda, still unconscious in Zyvian’s arms. With a piercing scream of rage it tore west, going after—

 _Vladishka?_ Rejection burst bitter between his teeth—and then confusion. _But why would he—?_

  Zyvian was shouting, had been for some time. When Daris turned to look at her, Zyvian was gesturing wildly with her free hand, pointing towards the spell-creature, towards Vladishka.

_Go help them!_

Against Daeron? Anger sparked, sullen and petty: what did Zyvian think he could do? The same ichor that ran through Daeron’s veins pulsed in Daris’s; any one of those soldiers on the ground had a better chance of resisting the Keeper than he did!

But.

But the hrimthur rider had already absorbed Zyvian’s command, and they were pulling away from the other dragon, turning, going back the way they’d come just moments before.

Not that they were going to be in time.

 *

“Behind!” Aveyar shouted, and Vladishka whipped her head around to shoot a glance over her shoulder. The dragons were still unsettled from the blast, the hrimthurren were trying to soothe them, and behind—that was—

**_Bleed it_ **

“Go!” she yelled, panic bursting, red unfurling, scraping the bottom of her well to do so because she was so _tired_. _“Move,_ bleed you!”

The hrimthurren couldn’t have understood the obiric curse but they understood the tone: twisting and coiling with unease, the dragons flared their wings and shot forward, like bullets, like comets. The wind smashed into Vladishka’s face, and so she buried herself in Rek’s shoulder, curled over zéiz body like a comma, her heart a frantic bird in her chest.

Panic, and rage. But what could the red do, up here in the sky? She didn’t have the energy to air-flit, and even if she did, she was no mage. Siav was the one meant to handle giant-ass spell-birds!

Something smooth and cool under her fingers.

The wind whistled in her ears, clawing at her hair, at her face when she looked up and found the Spear in her hand. She hadn’t called it—how could she use it? This was no duel, not the kind of fight she was made for.

The bird’s scream, ringing in her head.

 _It’s a sun-burn-it_ spear _, Vee,_ she told herself. Throw _it!_

From dragonback, with the wind and the speed and her ready to collapse—and she’d never done it before, not even stable on the ground. Vesh’dar might have had the strength in his arms to throw it, but Vee had always used it like a staff or a blade. She couldn’t—

Nakir. Kheylan. Rek.

She had to.

 _Sunfire burn it, Siav, you blood-it owe me for this!_ she swore. One-handed, she began to unfasten the straps tying her legs to the dragon’s saddle. There was no one to notice—Kheylan and Nakir both unconscious, Aveyar with them on the other dragon staring grimly forward, the hrimthurren focussed on their mounts—and in seconds she was free to re-tie them around Rek.

 _Free to fall_. As a student she had been shown graphic pictures of what such a fall would do to fragile obiri bones.

She peeled off her boots and didn’t watch as they fell away into the dark. Her bare feet gripped the leather saddle better than the shoes’ soles when she jumped up—but not well enough: the wind slammed into her and ripped her free like an errant leaf, and only lightning-fast reflexes saved her from being hurled directly into the mouth of the bird, a scream catching in her throat as she latched onto one of the dragon’s spines like a limpet.

 _“Vladishka!”_ Aveyar had seen her.

She couldn’t turn to look, and further words were ripped away by the wind. Every muscle had turned to water, her bones were weak as thread. How could she throw the Spear like this?

And the bird—black and silver—coming—could Daeron see her through it? Oh Vesh’dar, where was the red when she needed it? The spell-creature was half again the size of Mordecai, it was _coming_ , she had taken too long, a few seconds more and—

Bleed-it, Vesh’dar-curse it, just—she had never been so bleeding scared in her life, not like this, not—how could she let go to throw it, she would fall, she would _fall_ —

 _And if you don’t, Rek will die!_ she shouted at herself. But she’d die if she fell and then zé’d die too—

_Burn it all, just THROW!_

With a quiet sob she would deny until her dying day, Vladishka looked up into the face of the fast-approaching creature, released the bony spine, and _threw_.

The gleam of onyx set at the base of the spearhead shone like a black flame, hurtling forward with more force than she could have ever given it. She wished on it, wished on it so _hard_ —

The bird was flying forward, the Spear tearing directly for it, and seconds before they collided the river of wind snatched Vladishka’s feet and fingers from their grip.

 *

_“VLADISHKA!”_

The Spear sheared through the dark mana like a stone through mist, but Bruadaris had eyes only for a tiny falling speck hurtling through the darkness. Even as the bird-creature exploded in a solar storm of dark-light, blacking out his vision, his eyes stayed locked on her.

There was no way to communicate with the hrimthur directing the dragon. Daris didn’t hesitate a moment: the knife at his belt slashed through the bindings on his legs and he flung himself from the saddle, ignoring the cry of alarm from the dragon rider.

_If she dies if she dies—_

He plunged down like gravity’s lover, but in seconds he was going faster than gravity could take him. _Your feet are down_ , that was what they said when they taught you to air-flit, _forget ‘earth’ and ‘sky’. Make your own._ The sugar stored in his bones burned at a ferocious rate as he threw himself ‘forward’, running with gravity, and he only had a few seconds—forget the ground all you liked, but it was coming up fast, and Vladishka, Vee, no, _don’t—_

“Vee!”

She couldn’t hear him, but she saw him running—flitting— _come on, you’re no damsel in distress, help me help you!_

She did: twisting in mid-air, she got her feet ‘under’ her and sprang like a hunting cat, and only their years together let him see the shaking in her muscles, the desperate crying out for relief in every line of her—

Blood vessels burst in her eyes with the strain but she jumped—

And he caught her, grabbed her tight and held her close and just then, just then it didn’t matter, he didn’t care that she’d chosen Rekeishan over him, because it was all right and she was alive—

He remembered himself, and calmed (harder than expected, hurtling towards the ground as they were), and flung out a spell.

They came to a stop—careful, gentle, not sharp and sudden—a handful of miles above the ground.

And when he lowered them to the beaten earth, the Spear was point-down in the ice and upright as a flag, waiting for them.

 *

A piercing scream echoed through the castle’s labyrinthine halls from Daeron’s war-room. Within, the half-obiri godling crashed to his knees, clutching his chest as the mana he had sent against his niece was destroyed—not dismantled, or parried, or shielded against, but ripped out of reality, torn from his core and his reach. The power he had used would never return to his inner wellspring.

And it would take him weeks to recover. Better if she had torn out his heart—it would have been an easier wound to heal.

Enraged red eyes found and followed the dragons disappearing into the sky. Nakir was on one of them. Daeron would have to heal quickly, terrible injury or no—the human could not be allowed to live long. But this one, much as the thought disgusted him, Vladishka had won.

_Till next time, niece._

 *

Aivorn was out of his saddle and running across the sandy ground before his twin had even landed.

“What happened?” he demanded. “What took so long?”

“Did you not see—?” No, of course not; Aivorn would have paid no attention to aught but Siav and her escort. Not even a roc-sized spell-creature. “Never mind, I’ll explain later. Take her quickly.”

Siavahda’s wings trailed on the ground as they exchanged her. Aivorn’s hand flew to support her heavy head, his expression tender before he remembered that others were watching. “And the others?”

“Coming. Now go, she needs a healer!”

The dragon launched itself into the air again, and Aivorn turned to take his AnKi through the portal.

 *

Farien _selned_ the presence of the interloper half a second before she announced herself. “Siduro Farien!”

Farien blocked the practice blade swinging down for his shoulder, dodging left and sending his opponent crashing to the ground with a light push against their knee.

“Yes?” he asked, head turning as he lowered the _jer_ , a spear-like shaft ending in wickedly curved blades. The movement made the snowy spikes of his hair bounce. “What is it?” Sweat gleamed on his dark gold skin, but he wasn’t yet out of breath.

The interruption wasted no time. “Lord Aivorn has arrived to the north of the city, Siduro.”

Farien’s playful demeanour died in a moment. Without a glance back at his sparring partner he all but ran for the door.

The tall, streamlined soldier that had found him was quickly on the World-General’s heels, but Farien barely noticed as he sped through the winding hallways of the palace Sarakei, his wire-hilted sword still in his hands.

“Is Siav—is the AnKi-ja-morë with them?” he threw over his shoulder, not looking back as he spun on his heel, the marble floor screeching a protest as he turned down a side hallway. “And what’s your name, cadet?”

“Cadet Syam, sir,” the brunet answered, struggling to keep up with Farien’s pace. “And yes, she’s with them.”

Almost the instant the words reached Farien’s ear he flung open the double doors to the main hall. Situated at the exact centre of the pyramid-palace, it was here that the arkadian court tended to gather between events, and he was glad the training hall was only a—relatively—short run away.

 _*Shanelos?*_ he called, silver-flecked blue eyes scanning the crowd of nobles for his second-in-command. They were both high-born, but the Great Families disapproved of a male heading Arcadia’s armies. Farien wasn’t welcome among their company, so it was Shanelos who had to play nice with them, smoothing ruffled feathers and sweet-talking vengeful tempers. She was often here when there was no other real business to attend to, making sure no one was planning a coup to overthrow her Siduro.

Sure enough, she appeared as if popping out of the ground. “Sir?”

Farien fixed her with an uncharacteristically serious gaze. “Aivorn’s arrived with Siav. Gather an escort, get them mounted. We leave to bring them home in ten chimes.”

Setting her jaw, Shanelos nodded once before vanishing back into the crowd, ignoring the growing whispers coming from the surrounding courtiers, leaving her Siduro to calm them.

Which he had no intention of doing. There was a reason Shanelos dealt with the nobles, and it wasn’t only that they didn’t like Farien: it was because _he_ hated _them_. One glance at the handful of men and zéhn in their curtains of gossamer, at the silver chains binding their right hands to those of their matriarchs, and Farien knew better than to open his mouth to address them. Not unless he wanted to be called up before the Amorai for disrespect to the nobility.

Besides, Shanelos already had the soldiers he’d requested gathering past the huge archway leading outside.

He turned, remembering Syam. The cadet was still standing close by, watching him nervously. “Has anyone told the Emperor that Siavahda’s back?” Farien asked, keeping his voice low, for her ears alone.

“I don’t think so, Siduro,” Syam answered after a second. “The watch-guards told me to come straight to you. Unless they sent someone else to tell the Emperor...”

Farien suppressed a sigh. “Tell Shanelos to gather the soldiers in the northern courtyard,” he ordered. “I’ll meet them there in heartbeats.” Someone ought to tell the Emperor that his daughter was safely returned from her mad dash to Ivernia.

“Yes Siduro!” She darted off, clearly relieved to have a task to perform.

As it happened, there was no need to worry about where Alumit might be. Farien turned as a hand landed on his shoulder, and his eyes widened as he saw the Tiamat Emperor standing there. How had Farien not _selned_ him?

Automatically he made to kneel, but Alumit shook his head, his jade eyes hard and the gold flecks in them cold as he gestured for Farien to stay standing.

“Is it true?” he asked bluntly, his black hair stark against the cord of gold around his brow. “Siavahda? Has she returned?”

Confused by his liege’s tone, Farien nonetheless nodded. Movement caught his eye: Shanelos stood in the archway, frowning at the Emperor’s back. When she saw Farien look her way she vanished, the gold plating of her collar—all the armour an arkadian skin-dancer needed—flashing as she passed through the twisted crystal arch and disappeared.  “Yes, your Imperial Majesty,” Farien said, turning back to the Emperor. “The war-prince Aivorn is with her, but I don’t know any more than that at present.”

Green eyes blinked, and the Emperor released Farien’s shoulder and stepped back, his face carefully blank. Farien frowned, but stayed silent as Alumit seemed to consider something before finally meeting his eyes.

“I see. In that case, I shall retire to my study until you return with my daughter,” the Emperor said quietly, turning away from Farien. “You have my authority to order anything you need for her well-being.”

Farien nodded, grateful but hesitant as his Emperor left the room. Something about the short conversation bothered him…

But now was not the time to consider it. Mentally shrugging it off, he headed off for the northern courtyard, pausing at the archway to order a guard to find Lorellor. “Have lir ready to attend the AnKi-ja-morë the moment we return,” he bade the saluting soldier as he left.

Moments later he and Shanelos galloped past the palace gates, followed by a stream of mounted soldiers. Sunlight streamed down, but neither the shapeshifter riders—who adapted their eyes to the harsh light—or the longma they rode—giant dragon-horses crowned with spiralling horns and fountainous manes, whose wild relatives roamed Azrath under a still harsher sun—were bothered by the glare. All spotted the sun-on-water gleam of the portal just beyond the city bridge, and the figures already stepping through it.

Farien spurred his longma; behind him Shanelos ordered the soldiers to fan out, a wise move if anything unsavoury followed Aivorn through the portal from Ivernia. But all such thoughts fled when Farien’s hawk-sharp eyes saw Siavahda lying limp and still in Aivorn’s arms.

Cursing, he pulled to a halt before the group, swinging from the saddle without a word. Aivorn’s face was unreadable as Farien thrust the reins at him.

“Take her and go,” he ordered, leaving no room for discussion. “Lorellor should be waiting for you. Tell them that I gave orders for you to be served.”

With a wordless nod, Aivorn handed Siav over to Farien for a moment before almost leaping into the saddle and having the AnKi-ja-morë returned to his arms. The beaten-silver longma gave a soft hiss as he urged it forward, shaking its graceful head to set its mane in pearlescent plumes—and in a moment they were gone, paws pounding for the city walls.

“Do you need a remount, sir?” Shanelos asked when she pulled up alongside. “I can have one fetched, or you can ride with me.”

Farien shook his head. “They haven’t closed it,” he said, gesturing to the portal. “Which means they’re probably going to send others through. We’ll guard this side and wait.”

 *

Aivorn hit the ground running, letting his body fall from the silvery longma only to catch his weight at the last moment. He glanced down to make sure Siav was all right before slamming the doors open with a blast of energy.

Distantly he could hear the claws of Farien’s longma clicking over the cobblestones of the courtyard, but his gaze was firmly on the guards that tried to bar his way, even as they winced at the sight of the silver flashes around his furious eyes.

“Let me pass,” he snarled, cradling Siav’s form protectively. “I have the Siduro’s word that I won’t be hindered here!”

One of them looked down to the burden he carried, and her eyes widened in shock when she recognized Siav. Instantly she stepped back, pushing her companion aside roughly, and Aivorn didn’t spare a thought for either of them as he ran past.

“Lorellor!” he shouted as he entered the great hall, passing under an archway wrought of dark blue stone and veins of silver, ignoring the exquisite beauty as he cried out. “Blood and thorns, _someone summon that unstained healer!”_

His voice broke on the final word as the various servants and courtiers scattered, vanishing like rats into the passages and halls of the pyramid. No doubt they fled to search for Lorellor—but it looked as if they were abandoning him, abandoning Siavahda to her death.

What should he do? Where should he go? What if he chose the wrong direction, and took too long finding Lorellor? What if the delay killed Siav? He should stay here, where those searching for the healer would say Aivorn was waiting—but blessed Erra, to stand still and helpless when everything in him demanded he _do_ something!

He rested his head on Siav’s shoulder, carefully cradling her velvet-lined wings—trailing banners of parchment and silk, crimson and blue-veined cream. He felt hollow with every brush of her hair, and it was so hard not to scream feeling her weak, limp—

Lifeless.

This wasn’t how she was meant to be. This wasn’t how _anything_ was meant to be! It wasn’t supposed to hurt every thorns-kissed second that he breathed, every time his heart beat, every time he saw her, heard her voice, her laughter.

But he’d gladly take that pain for the rest of time if only Lorellor would come!

“Aivorn?”

He looked up, quelling the sinking of his heart as he wondered if his bargain with fate had been struck.

The healer smiled past the worried concern shadowing lir elegant mahogany features, lir violet eyes calm as le gently helped the war-prince to his feet. Sable hair fell in frizzy locks a little past lir shoulders, a slim braid of silver beads tucked behind a pointed ear, and in lir tunic of pearl-white silk le radiated calm and quiet just as a master healer should.

“Bring her this way,” le said softly, leading Aivorn through the now-empty hall, lir slippered feet whisper-silent on the marble floor. The green and silver embroidery of lir high collar and cuffs caught the sunlight as they passed by windows, and their brisk pace soothed something in Aivorn, let Siavahda’s weight rest easier in his arms.

In almost no time at all Lorellor was pushing open a white, lazuli-inset door, revealing a quiet healing chamber. The room had been built and decorated in the syvin style—carved completely from white marble, the clear sound of running water filled the room from the small stream coiling through the floor as the posies of lavender did with their scent, and silver wind chimes hung in the open window.

Aivorn gently lay Siav down on the egg-shaped cot, careful with her wings as her head lolled to one side. He bit back the pang in his heart to see her there, red and gold scales stark and bright against the white bed. His eyes rested on her a moment as Lorellor fetched cut-glass potion bottles, coloured crystals and bunches of herbs that le set on the bedside table, pulling up a white-velvet stool to sit beside the bed.

Leaning forward, the liosalfa placed lir hands on either side of Siav’s face. Lir thumbs rubbed soothing circles over the AnKi-ja-morë’s temples as le stared at her forehead, wide and unblinking. Lir eyes slowly hazed over as they began to glow.

Aivorn stood on the other side of the bed, his hand aching to take Siav’s even if it seemed she wouldn’t feel the comfort he offered. He knew what Lorellor was doing—had seen healers perform the same spellcraft on half a hundred unconscious patients. It was a technique used to discover a patient’s symptoms when the one injured wasn’t able to tell a healer what was wrong—long-term coma patients, or those who’d been knocked out on the battlefield or in a hunting accident—a spell to allow the healer to see inside a person’s body.

“Aivorn, your frantic worry is distracting me,” Lorellor said gently without looking up.

And to see their emotions and mana—along with those of everyone in the healer’s vision.

Aivorn nodded numbly, but he paused for a long moment before he crossed the room, and wavered for a heart-beat by the door. He looked back, a gesture of uncharacteristic emotional display that wasn’t lost on Lorellor.

“I’ll take care of her, Aivorn,” the healer said softly, still without looking away from Siav. “You’ve done what you can. Let me do my part now.”

Without another word, the war-prince vanished with all the speed of a flitting obiri—but the door, when it closed, barely made a sound.

 *

Safely remounted and with no more attacks forthcoming, it didn’t take Vladishka and Daris long to reach the portal’s safe haven.

Vladishka nearly fell from the saddle when they touched down on the ground. Her vision was swimming, but when Aveyar moved to take Rekeishan from her she snarled like a rabid wolf.

“Leave it,” Daris said. “Push her much further and she’s going to snap.”

Reluctantly, Aveyar and the handful of other obiri obeyed, lifting their injured down from the dragons with care. Bruadaris recognised Kheylan—the Dracula’s light-burned nephew—but not the other man. His skin was too dark for an obiri, and besides, Daris couldn’t _seln_ him.

“Who is he?” he asked as the guards readied the portal for them.

“Does it matter?” Aveyar asked. He lifted the man’s sleeve, and Daris stared in amazement at the _drac_ _ŭlan_ on the stranger’s arm. “He’s one of ours.”

They passed through the portal in short order; first Vladishka, with Rek in her arms, then Aveyar with Kheylan, Kacila with the stranger... Bruadaris gave no sign of his apprehension as each of them vanished in the violet light, passing through worlds with all the ease of stepping through a curtain, without a backwards glance.

Daris looked back. Hesitated. More than hesitated: there was something intrinsic to his sense of self that demanded he go back—back to Daeron, back to the darkness.

But the kern-rois mages were watching, their faces blank masks that nonetheless judged him for every moment of delay.

He conjured a sun-shield and walked through the portal.

He had waited too long: Vladishka and the others were gone, bearing the wounded away across Tivona’s bridge on longma-back. Daris could see them, dark specks in the bright day moving further and further away from him. Clearly someone had gotten in the way; two arkadian soldiers were bleeding heavily, being tended to by their fellows.

Farien whirled on him. “Why did no one send a runner to warn us Vee is on the breaking point?” he demanded. Behind them both, the portal shimmered and closed, folding itself down into nothingness. Apparently, everyone else was headed for Kern-Rois, not Arcadia.

Bruadaris met Farien’s gaze squarely, betraying nothing of the knot in his gut. “No one thought of it.”

Farien wasn’t swayed. “And what about you? Were you incapable of _thinking ahead?”_

Bruadaris snarled, and instantly a dozen blades were pointing towards him like compass hands. A handful were pressed hard against his shoulder, his arm, one against the back of his neck.

 *

The obiri’s face was pained and defiant as he answered. “ _That’s_ why,” he said softly, mockery twined intimately with regret. “I’m a Vovim, son of Kuvalai—and no one is willing to forget it except the Mahorela Aoiveae themselves. Who would trust me if I began to order their warriors?”

Farien was shocked—and angry at the blatant distrust winding throughout the soldiers. “Stand down!” he ordered, fury staining his voice like blood in cloth. “Stand _down_ , you hypocritical _tekeishra!”_ he fumed, watching with blazing eyes as the blades were lowered—some instantly, others not fast enough. “Or will you try and tell me that none of you have ever committed a wrong?” He searched their faces. “None of you? Hm?”

He ignored Bruadaris’ shocked expression, ignored the slight ache in his heart—had no one ever stood up for the obiri before? “This man has done more for the Mahorela Aoiveae and the Light than any of us can ever _dream_ of achieving! He deserves your respect, not your hate and distrust!” 

He eyes met those of every man and woman that had raised their blades. _“Am I understood?”_

Gazes fell, and only a handful seemed able to meet his furious stare, murmuring affirmations and quiet, contrite apologies. Swords were sheathed, and the soldiers stepped back—but Farien saw the faint trickle of blood that wove down Bruadaris’ neck, a thin crimson thread bright and stark against snowy skin.

His eyes met the obiri’s, and though Bruadaris’ face was void of expression, his eyes conveyed his thanks, cool and clear and honest.

“If that’s taken care of,” Farien said, breaking Bruadaris’ gaze, “then let’s get back to Tivona.”


	21. Nakir

_“…Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”—Stephen King_

 

_He is surrounded by light, and the light is in him and is him._

_It is not static, still, dead: it is movingdancing and singing and ALIVE, bursting with colour and sound and sensation, all haematic and viola and whisper-soft steel edge, sharp and bristling and kissing and purring, singing, ianthine mazarine lovat indigo, the silk-smoothness of polished stone and splash of ice-melt water and rich soft bear pelt, celeste and citrine, glowing and burning and a thousand, thousand multi-hued ribbons weaving in and out of each other like planets dancing._

_It is larger than the Chrysler building. It is larger than his mind can comprehend. He is—it is—he and it are one, and he cannot hold it all._

_They are one, but only barely. It stretches him and it hurts; he is swollen and bloated, strained past all limits, fraying at the fringes of himself. He understands, dimly, that he was never meant to contain this. Oil and water are the most intimate of lovers in comparison._

_He drifts. Time is a concept without meaning._

_Slowly he begins to remember. The ribbons of energy weave his shape, outlining his boundaries. His scattered consciousness is gathered together into a thinking mind; he recalls his name: Xavier. With it comes knowledge, memories, a self-awareness that shapes a presence for itself, one that mimics his physical one in another realm: first skin, then hands, arms, torso, head, legs._

_He looks like himself. But he is more than the appearance of a human being. He is...something else. When he closes his not-eyes and just_ feels _, the power sears him. It is like being the sun._

_Where is he? What is this place? Xavier reaches out—not with his not-hands, but with his awareness, his mind, with the ribbons of light that whisper and sing for him and around him. Every second that passes brings new memories, makes him more solidly himself._

_Beyond the light there is only darkness._

_Not knowing what else to do, he feels the energy. It is him, almost, like an arm or a leg—no, like a thousand thousand wings, and he spreads them out, searching himself, turning in on the light to see what it is, a movement like folding your tongue in on itself._

_He touches-hears-sees-tastes it, and it is soft and silken and vibrating with tension, humming and glowing white-silver-blue-gold, ozone and pepper and tangerine. It’s as if his touch completes a circuit-board of soul: it shocks through him like junk-poison-orgasm, hot and vicious and electric, it runsburnsscreams through him, into and out of, brandingremaking mineoursyoursYES._

_Yes._

_Mine._

_Yours._

_He takes and gives and completes the circuit and what is broken becomes whole in a new shape and_

_He’s standing in a desert, hot, burning sand stretching in every direction but up, amber and blood and gold, strewn with granite-grey rocks, boulders and pillars that stretch like towers up into the sky. The sky is white and colourless, the horizon smudged with darkness._

_He is himself again. Or—something. He feels like flesh, and looks like it, but the power isn’t gone. It’s inside where he can’t see._

_It hurts._

_“Xavier?”_

_He turns—slowly, carefully, because too sudden a move might break him._

_Perched atop a boulder is a creature he first thinks is Siav, but a half-instant later realises it can’t be. It looks like her dragonoid shape, but where Siav is covered in gleaming red scales this person is black, the colour of a raven’s plumage—and instead of the delicate lines of gold woven over Siav’s face and chest there are slim bands of pearly grey worked over the ebony. The tendrils these dragon-things have in place of hair are dark blue and green._

_“Who are you?” Xavier asks. “Where are we?” He remembers chasing after Al-Siav, and the fight with Daeron. He remembers the light tearing out of him, remembers channelling more raw power than he had ever imagined existed—but after that it’s a blank._

_“I’m Nakir.” It’s like talking to the obiri—Xavier can hear the words in English, but under them is a hissing, gravelly thing that must be Nakir’s language, the words the dragonoid means to speak. “And I think this is your mind.”_

_Xavier pauses to consider this. “So I’m sleeping?”_

_“Something like,” Nakir agrees. He shifts on his rock, and glints of sapphire and emerald glimmered over his scales, the grey calligraphy shining like seams of opal._

_“Okay. Do you know how to get out of here? Only there was a lot going on, and I think I should wake up.” Had the obiri gotten the door open? He doesn’t think they would have abandoned him unconscious, but the thought of them carrying his body around like a piece of luggage is uncomfortable._

_“I can’t let you do that,” Nakir says quietly._

_Xavier tenses. “Sorry?”_

_“I can’t let you wake up. I need your body.” The draconic face isn’t flexible enough to convey much expression, but Xavier thinks he can see a kind of sympathy in it. “I’m sorry.”_

_“Wait,” Xavier snaps as Nakir begins to spread his wings, “What are you talking about? Are you—I thought you were just my subconscious talking to me.” Like in that film about dreams, what was it—_ Inception _. “Are you telling me you’re_ real _?”_

_“As real as you,” Nakir says tiredly. “Daeron ripped me out of my body and put me here, locked away and asleep.” He gives a sort of smile. “All anyone had to do was say my name where you could hear, and the code-lock on my prison would have come undone. But Siav’s mana got the job done just as well.”_

_“Daeron—? He put you in my_ brain _?”_ And Siav’s mana? _Does Nakir mean the light?_

_“More or less. I don’t think he picked you out specifically—he just flung my soul past Earth’s null and watched where I dropped.”_

He watched all right, _Xavier thinks, a sick pit opening up in his gut._ He recognised me. _That was the reason Daeron had looked at him with such hate. But wait, no. “Why would he give a damn about you? Why not kill you?”_

_Something flashes across Nakir’s eyes. “Because it was crueller not to,” he says softly, with more than a hint of menace. “As for why—do you really not know who I am?”_

_“Would I ask if I did?” Xavier snaps. The power—Siav’s mana?—filling him to the brim was tense, coiling and uncoiling like a knot of snakes beneath his skin. He hasn’t forgotten Nakir’s casual declaration that he would be taking Xavier’s body._

_The draconic figure shrugs. “I’m Siavahda’s_ nejika _.”_

 *

“I suppose the healers knows better than to try and make you rest.”

Vladishka shot Aveyar with a poisonous glare. “Can I say the same for you?”

Aveyar shrugged, and Vladishka went back to her pacing, sweeping up and down the same stretch of hallway, over and over.

“Did you at least feed?” he asked her.

“Of course I did,” she snapped. “Some noble-born bitch lent me her boy-toy. As if I’d asked for a hairpin instead of blood!”

“No doubt she was glad to do you a favour,” Aveyar said wryly. “It’s not impossible that Arcadia will belong to Sheol eventually. You want to have the new rulers thinking kindly of you, when that happens.”

Vladishka hissed and resumed her stalking, but only moments later the door opened.

“How is zé?” Vladishka demanded.

The healer—an arkadian woman, dark-skinned and dark-haired—knew better than to protest Vladishka’s tone. “Zé’ll live,” she said, more than a hint of exhaustion in her voice. “I’ve done all I can, but I’m not Lorellor; I couldn’t fully heal zém. Zé needs rest, and lots of it. But you can see zém now, if you like,” she added hastily, catching the promise of violence that flashed over Vladishka’s face.

Without another word, Vladishka swept past her into the room, pointedly closing the door behind her.

Suppressing a sigh, Aveyar turned to the healer. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Sheol’s ambassador is, do you?”

 *

“Don’t you dare fuss,” Rekeishan said hoarsely the moment the door was closed. “I know what you’re like, and I will not be fussed over.”

Vladishka swallowed hard as zé grinned at her, just managing to summon a weak smile in return. It was a struggle not to burst into tears. She didn’t know how zé could still smile at her like that—so hopelessly sweet, like a light catching inside zém… As if there was nothing wrong with the world, with Duranki, as long as she was here with zém.

“How are you feeling?” she asked instead, clearing her throat as she looked away, unable to meet zéiz clear, calm, _happy_ gaze. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? They probably haven’t given you anything to eat yet—”

“Vee. They gave me some bread and milk, and that’s probably all I could handle right now anyway.” Zéiz gaze turned serious—she could feel the pressure of it against her skin.

“Look at me,” zé said softly, and the laughter was gone so swiftly from zéiz voice—and it hurt, it sunfire burn it _hurt_ that zé wasn’t happy, that zé wasn’t laughing and light and grinning like an idiot. And that it was _her fault_.

She hadn’t been there. She hadn’t been where she was supposed to be—at zéiz side. Instead she’d been hiding out in some mana-forsaken backwater world, where _she_ would be safe, where _she_ would be fine, protected and shielded from Daeron and his cult. But she hadn’t taken Rek with her. Zé’d stayed in the Empire.

Where zé was supposed to have been safe.

“We need to talk,” her _nejika_ said firmly. It was a little funny, even now, that zé was trying to be so serious, when zé was flat on zéiz back on the bed and not the slightest bit intimidating. But there were bruises showing around zéiz bandages, and she would agree to anything to make them be undone.

“Say whatever you want,” Vladishka said quietly, moving forward and sitting down on the edge of the bed, careful of zéiz legs. Her hand moved for zéiz, and the two locked together like lodestones. “You know I’ll always listen.” She had listened when zé told her Riowen was abusing zém, and she’d listened when zé confessed that zé wanted to keep the baby. No matter how hard or painful the words, she had never brushed zém off and never would. Zéhn were Arcadia’s lowest of the low, taught from birth that their opinions were irrelevant, their views ignored when they weren’t punished outright for expressing them. It had taken a long, long time for Rek to learn that Vladishka would always listen, to accept that she _wanted_ to hear zéiz thoughts, and despite everything it gave her a moment’s pure, untainted joy that zé could insist they needed to discuss something.

Zé had come so far.

But now Rek broke their gaze and looked up at the ceiling. She could feel zém struggle, a horrible cocktail of hurt and bitterness and confusion, laced through with the physical pain of zéiz injuries. Her sense of zém was dim, but becoming clearer: whatever drug they’d forced into zém to dull their bond, it was wearing off.

“Sssh,” she crooned, stroking her thumb over the back of zéiz hand. “You can tell me, dearling.”

A burst of anguish, sharp and too-sweet, before zé spit the words out. “The Tiamat is a traitor.”

 *

Nejika _._

“The closest word in your language would be ‘soulmate’.” _That’s what Kheylan had said, when Xavier asked what it meant. Soulmates, like Vladishka and Rekeishan._

_“That makes no sense,” Xavier says slowly. “Al—Siav’s been with me for the last four years. In the romantic sense. Granted, there is apparently a lot I didn’t know about her, but I think she would have mentioned it if she was already in love with someone. Most people do.”_

_For a second Xavier thinks he feels this huge, yawning pain coming from Nakir. Maybe he can feel it because the other man—creature—thing—is in his head, or maybe it’s just some kind of sympathy pain, because there’s something very similar creeping up on Xavier, too, half-formed and shadowy. Something that he doesn’t want to look at too closely._

_“She must have Known,” Nakir says finally. “That I was here. She must have been trying to break me out.”_

_And there it is._

“She Knows things.”

“I’m not reading your mind. I just know what you’re thinking.”

_“If she spent four years pretending to be in love with me,” Xavier says, and his voice feels far away, even here, when they’re somewhere in his brain, a part of him can still pull away from everything, “Just to free you, then why would she kill herself and give up?”_

_“It wasn’t giving up,” Nakir argues, and dimly Xavier realises that they are both trying to convince themselves. Nakir too. Only they are trying to fortify different truths. “It was an attempt to shock me awake. Nothing else had worked.”_

_And there’s something about the way he says it—as if it’s Aleron’s voice, Siav’s voice, her thoughts spoken aloud. As if Nakir really does know her, better than Xavier ever could._

She told you nothing _, he thinks to himself, and yeah, there was the dread, the gaping realisation, the shiver on the knife’s edge._ She didn’t tell you she was a woman, that she wasn’t human. She didn’t tell you about mana or other worlds or who she was. You didn’t know her at all.

 _“Don’t hate her,” Nakir says suddenly. He slides off his rock, onto the ground a few feet away. “I’m sorry you were caught in the middle, but it wasn’t her fault. I’m her_ nejika _. That she didn’t die when they cut our bond is a miracle, but she’ll die soon without me. She needs me.”_

_“What would have happened to me?” Xavier doesn’t look at him, but it doesn’t matter because they’re in Xavier’s brain, his mind, and he can feel Nakir’s presence now that he knows it’s there. “If she’d woken you up. What would that do to me?”_

_Nakir doesn’t answer._

_“You said you were going to take my body,” Xavier continues, and it’s so cold. Not in the desert, but in him, and the desert is also him but that’s too confusing to think about just now. “And I’m guessing that’s what you would have done, if she’d broken you out. Right? What would have happened to me?” He remembers, sharply, the sensation of being trapped in his own skin when Kheylan reached into his mind. Unable to move, to see, to breathe. “Would I have been a voice in the back of your head?”_

_“No,” Nakir says quietly._

_“No.” He kind of wants to laugh, but the sound’s all razor-edged in his throat. “No. Of course not, that’s too—it’s too fucking merciful.” The words taste like lead, feel like bullets on his tongue. “It would have killed me. Right? You were going to snuff me out. You still want to._ She _wanted that!”_ Al. Al wanted me dead.

 _“What the_ fuck _is wrong with you people?” he demands. “She could have fucking_ told _me all this! Couldn’t she’ve? Waved her wand, done a bit of mana-magic, proven it was real. I would have listened!”_

_“Would you have sacrificed yourself?” Nakir asks. He sounds—Xavier doesn’t know the word for the tone in his voice, for what he feels coming from the dragon-man. Shame, maybe. And curiosity, and exhaustion._

_“I don’t know,” he snarls, “but that doesn’t mean you get to make the choice for me!” He’d signed up for the Marines, and for the SAS after that. He didn’t sign up for this._

_“She will_ die _,” Nakir snaps, and the shame is gone from him, burnt up as if it never was. “Do you understand that? I’m sorry that you have been caught in the crossfire, but I would sacrifice far more than one human to save her life!”_

_And that—that is just—“I’m not going to die for a woman I don’t even know.”_

_There. He said it. Because that’s the logical conclusion, isn’t it? If she faked being in love with him—made him love her (and gods, that’s a bizarre thought still, he fell in love with a_ woman _)—she’s not who he thought she was. She probably faked everything._

_She’s not Al. Al—Al doesn’t exist._

_Only he did. For a little while, before Siav got her memories back, Aleron was real. David, back then. He was Xavier’s first kiss, his first, childish love._

_And then the memories came back, and Al died, and that—that is the most painful thing he has ever felt. Even walking in to that bathroom, to the blood and the corpse, is less painful now that he knows it wasn’t real. It’s just not as bad as knowing that the fourteen year old he loved—the way only a kid can love, with his whole gods-damned soul—died, and Xavier didn’t even notice._

_“I don’t want to fight you,” Nakir says. Quiet. Intense._

_“You don’t?” Xavier asks bitterly. “Well, that sucks, ’cause I really feel like punching someone.”_

_Nakir sighs._

_Then he snarls, and lunges, and the battle begins._

 *

Vladishka forgot how to breathe.

“He wanted to talk to me about Arcadia’s regency,” Rek said, each word shaped with effort but spat out quickly. “I thought—I thought we were going to discuss whether Arcadia comes with me, when—when we’re handfasted.” Arkadians didn’t blush unless they wanted to, but she could feel the edge of zéiz embarrassment, mentioning the wedding they hadn’t talked about. At any other time she would have found it adorably precious.

Now she was numb. No, not numb: cold.

“I…He offered me something to drink, and I didn’t even think about it—I drank it, of course I did, there was no—no reason _not_ to. And then a few minutes later I passed out. When I woke up, I was in D-Daeron’s dungeons.” Zé swallowed, unable to meet her eyes. “Daeron—one of his mages—he did something to silence our bond. I called and called, but…”

But she hadn’t heard him. She’d felt the bond go silent, yes—but she hadn’t been able to feel zéiz fear, zéiz pain, zéiz need for her. It made her heart ache, even through the haze of freezing red.

She could feel zéiz determination to finish the story. “I know it was him,” zé said softly. “He used spells to unlock the wards on the door, on his safe, to summon reports he wanted to show me...”

An arkadian could mimic a person’s fingerprints, their voice, their scars, their DNA. But no shapeshifter could copy the signature of another’s mana.

Which meant that it had been no imposter. Alumit had handed her _nejika_ over to Daeron.

Rekeishan started when Vladishka was abruptly leaning over zém, but even though the sweet, sleepy smile she gave zém had once terrified an army, she felt no fear in zém. Zé knew she would never, ever hurt zém.

“I’ll kill him,” she murmured, soft and low. Her hand cupped Rekeishan’s cheek; her thumb stroked over the bone. “I promise.”

She leaned down to kiss zém, and Rek, like a mouse caught in a serpent’s gaze, reached for her, heedless of the crimson ice flowing through their link.

Someone knocked at the door just as their lips touched. Vladishka snarled, and the sound ran down her soulmate’s spine and made zém shiver.

 _“What?”_ she hissed as the door slid open.

Aveyar, bleed him, was utterly calm as he entered, gently closing the door behind him. He was carrying a stack of clothes, which he deposited on the bed. “You’re covered in blood,” he said bluntly. “You just barely skated by on the excuse that Rekeishan was injured, but if you leave this room looking like that, there’ll be consequences.”

She snarled again, and even as one of her oldest friends he didn’t have the faith in his safety that Rekeishan did. But he didn’t flinch, all the same.

“As if I care what those harridans think of me,” she snapped, but was cut off by Rekeishan’s fingers on her wrist.

“Please,” zé said quietly. “The Amorai...they could make things difficult.”

The tiredness in zéiz voice lanced her anger. “All right,” she said gently. She reached for the clothes, only now seeing the stains on her sleeve. “Where did you get these?” she asked Aveyar, unfolding the simple black garments that couldn’t possibly have come from an arkadian tailor. Arkadians liked colour and gold, and obiri lived at the opposite end of the fashion spectrum.

“Our ambassador.” Aveyar turned around as Vladishka exchanged her bloodied clothes for the fresh ones. “Whose death are you planning?”

So he’d heard. Considering their species’s hearing, it didn’t surprise her. Nor did the rush of glacial rage at the reminder. “Alumit. He betrayed Rekeishan to Daeron.”

Aveyar sucked in a breath; it hissed through his teeth. “I was wondering who the traitor was. But I hadn’t expected...”

“Yes, it’s all _quite_ mind-boggling,” Vladishka said sweetly, her eyes twin chips of bloody ice. “But I’m more concerned with ending him than discerning his motives. You can turn around now.”

He did so. “Vladishka, you’re my friend as well as my liege, which is why I’m telling you to go to your mother _before_ you do something drastic.”

She smiled, and saw him suppress a flinch. “He tried to kill my _nejika_ ,” she said softly. “That means he tried to kill _me_. That’s one AnKi-al-it, and one AnKi-ja-morë. And that means war.” 

 *

_Nakir is nine feet tall with the long reach that implies, but Xavier has fought people bigger and heavier than him before. Krav Maga isn’t boxing or sumo wrestling, a style where bigger means better. He can deal._

_Nakir has long, deadly-looking claws: Xavier treats them like a knife. When the dragonoid comes at him Xavier grabs his (thick) wrist and twists it away from himself, pulls on the arm lightning-quick and hooks his ankle around Nakir’s, darts away as Nakir begins to fall._

Not as easy as you thought it would be, huh? _Xavier thinks with satisfaction._ I’m not a fucking lamb to be sacrificed!

 _But the dragon-man doesn’t fall. His body_ twists _in midair, light and graceful the way nothing that size should be and he comes up swinging—not with his fists but with his_ wings _, slashing horizontal through the air like blades and they have claws, long dagger-like fingers at the apex and joints of each wing and Xavier’s already ducking, bending backwards to avoid those knives—_

_And the bastard’s tail snakes for him, tipped with its own isosceles stiletto, and Xavier doesn’t even see it until he’s on his back on the ground._

_The dragonoid stands over him, but there is no dramatic monologue, no offer of peace or compromise. If there is any expression in his red and gold eyes Xavier can’t see it—and then the razor-sharp dagger at the end of that powerful tail comes whipping towards him again._

_This is it. He’s going to die alone and unmourned for nothing, for fucking_ nothing _, not for a cause he believes in or for his country or even for someone who loves him because Al didn’t, Al didn’t even fucking exist and he wanted Xavier dead and had from the first moment and it was this freak, this dragon-man_ freak _that he-she had loved did love probably always would because it was all a lie and he was going to die anyway even though it wasn’t true even though it was for nothing because IT WAS ALL A LIE—_

_And it’s so unfair—_

_So wrong—_

_The raging hate-pain-rage takes his breath away—shakes him to the core—_

_And the light in his chest erupts like a wordless scream._

 *

“Is this the time to remind you that you can’t declare war for Sheol?” Aveyar asked after the silence had stretched to the breaking point. “You’re not Dracula yet.”

“Who said anything about Sheol?” Vladishka purred. “If mother won’t agree—and you don’t know that she won’t—it’ll be me the Empire has to deal with.”

That struck Aveyar and Rekeishan dumb again. Vladishka had been exhausted, drained and separated from her _nejika_ in Daeron’s fortress, and she had still slaughtered hundreds of battle-trained fomoiri single-handedly. The Empire would never willingly go against a fed and well-rested Warrior.

There was another knock at the door before anyone was forced to reply; Syrelle walked in without waiting for one. Her arm was wrapped in neat, clean bandages that stood out starkly against her dark uniform. Unlike Vladishka she was still wearing her battle-stained clothing. “I’m sorry, _mâéregel_ , but the healers say there is something amiss with Xavier. They want you to come,” she said without preamble.

Vladishka hesitated and looked to Rek, sending a mental question mark through their bond.

Zé nodded. “Go,” zé said gently. “I’ll be fine.” _*Just come back.*_

The whisper was a knife to the gut, but she didn’t want to shame zém by acknowledging it aloud. “Stay with zém,” she ordered Aveyar. “If anyone but a healer touches zém, gut them.” She bent over and kissed Rekeishan softly, running her fingers through zéiz auburn hair, still tangled and greasy from zéiz imprisonment. “And if even a healer tries to move zém or put zém to sleep...”

“Gut them?” Aveyar asked wryly, as if she wasn’t authorising him to start an inter-world incident.

She smiled at him. “Exactly.” She looked back at Rek’s bemused face. “Does this count as fussing?”

Zé laughed. “Go already.” But zé was smiling. _Mission accomplished_ she thought as she let Syrelle lead her out of the room.

*

_The sound that comes out of Nakir’s mouth is a deep, bone-shaking roar, of pain or anger. Xavier can’t tell and doesn’t care, but the moment the question enters his mind—the moment his focus is no longer on his own raging sense of injustice—the light burning from his eyes and mouth and hands goes out._

_He wants nothing more than to lie on the ground and try to work out what happened—what had happened_ again _—but instead he picks himself up because there is Nakir, somewhere, possibly waiting to attack again, and Xavier doesn’t want to be laid out like a sacrifice when he did._

_But Nakir isn’t charging like a bull: he is staring at Xavier as if the human had grown another head, apparently unharmed._

_Had it been only light, this time?_

_“It bonded with_ you _?” Nakir snarls, incredulous. “Siav’s mana should have come to_ me _!”_

 _Xavier shrugs._ So that’s what it is. _“You were locked up,” he says. “I guess it made do.” He flexes his fingers experimentally._ What do I do with it?

_Nakir snarls again, and it’s just—Xavier laughs. It is suddenly impossible not to, suddenly too hysterical, too insane and mental and electricity spins over his arms like thread on a spool, winding bright gold over the sleeves of his jacket, and he laughs harder, breathless and shaking and it is spilling out of him like champagne, brimming over, slowing down and speeding up, white-hot and ice-cold and he can taste pepper on his tongue, pepper and mint and cinnamon, it is sweet and alive as a drug and he is fucking drunk with it._

_The dragon-man comes at him, and—_

_And Xavier doesn’t mean to, he just raises his hands to block, and the lightning fires from him like a cannon._

 *

The room where Rekeishan was being tended was a quiet, peaceful, well-ordered place, its soothing decoration and atmosphere meant to encourage serenity in the patients. Even on the battlefield, healers rarely moved quickly or shouted—they wore composure like a cloak.

But the chamber Syrelle had led her to was full of shouting women barking orders at frantic apprentices; potion bottles were overturned, crystals scattered on tabletops, bunches of herbs smoked as if burnt. Char marks, like those from a small blast zone, left ashy fingerprints on the white walls and floor.

And at the middle of it all Xavier arched and bucked like a man having a seizure: strapped down at the wrists and ankles, face twisted, eyes closed—and surrounded by a glowing nimbus of crackling energy, shimmering like a heat haze and shot through with jagged knives of hot lightning that attacked anyone who came near. Even as Vladishka watched one of the healers cried out, cradling a badly burned hand.

She grabbed an apprentice. “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded.

The girl’s hands were bandaged almost to her elbows—had she been one of the ones to tie Xavier down? “I d-don’t kn-know, M-mâéregel,” she stuttered. “I’m n-not—”

Rolling her eyes, Vladishka pushed the girl away. “Somebody answer me!” she ordered, raising her voice above the chaos. “That man is under the protection of the Dracula-Imperials. He—”

One of the apprentices screamed. Xavier was convulsing, ribbons of black scales racing up and down his body like living things, like live snakes slithering over him, and blood beaded the lines where skin met scales.

 *

_This time the blow lands: the lightning hits Nakir like a freight train and he goes flying backwards, crashing into the boulder he’d appeared on._

_Xavier laughs, again, and flexes his fingers, also again. His skin feels like a pair of gloves, like something he can take off and put away. What would be underneath, if he did? Slim white bones embraced by loving tendons, muscles contracting and releasing as if they breathe, kissed and caressed by veins and arteries?_

_Or would there be light, and light, and_ light?

 _He closes his eyes and tries to breathe, dizzy, ecstatic, sick, intoxicated._ I’m drunk. There’s something wrong with this, with me. _It is hard to focus, the light/mana is hot and playful under his skin, chittering, giggling, wanting to play, eager to be commanded. Seductive._

_Nakir pushes himself up off the rock. “I’m truly sorry you were dragged into this,” he says quietly. “If any other path were available, I would walk it. But there is none.”_

_And—_

_And sun-light-gold bursts out of the ground at Nakir’s feet, winding about the draconian in thick tendrils, dripping honey onto the sand and hiding him in a thick cocoon of fire._

_Shining ribbons of ice leap and weave over Xavier’s arms like bands of diamond in response—_

_And the egg of fire suddenly breaks open, upwards and out and the shockwave of energy slams Xavier into the ground, Nakir’s shadow behind all the gold twisting-expanding-stretching, moulding and changing. Wings flaredout along joints and hinges of flesh that don’t exist, body expanding like bread rising, and when it stops Xavier is staring at a fucking_ dragon _, miles high, dwarfing him_.

_But only for a moment; the creature—Nakir—snarls, flames flickering out to curl over its snake-like tongue—and that’s all the warning Xavier has before a river of fire hurtles from the dragon’s mouth._

*

“Somebody get Lorellor!” one of the women shouted, while others hurriedly shielded themselves in an attempt to avoid getting burned by Xavier’s energy field as they held him down, trying to run diagnostic spells that fizzled and hissed, snuffed out even as they were cast.

Vladishka swept her gaze over the chaos, picked the woman who looked most likely to be in charge (the loudest, giving the most orders), and flit across the room to her.

“That man is an incarnate,” Vladishka told her. “Behind a memory-lock. You need to break the coding.”

The healer’s eyebrows rose. “I’m sorry?”

Vladishka pointed at Xavier. “That is Nakir Zaixaiae-el,” she said fiercely. “And I’m willing to bet those scales— _draconian_ scales—have something to do with that fact!”

The woman’s eyes—a deep brown flecked with blue—narrowed. “Mâéregel, that is _not_ an incarnate. There are _two_ souls in that body—if Zaixaiae-el is one of them, then he’s a walk-in and we need to get him back to his birth-body at once.”

 _A walk-in._ Obiri didn’t feel the cold, but a splinter of ice stabbed Vladishka in the heart at the healer’s words.

“Not possible,” she forced out. “His birth-body is dead.”

For the first time, Vladishka saw real worry in the woman’s eyes. “Those scales—they’re manifesting because your walk-in is fighting to take control of that body. And the original occupier isn’t happy about it.”

“They’re _fighting?”_

“Yes!” the healer snapped. “They are, and since the soul born into a body has more control over it than any walk-in, there’s a good chance Zaixaiae-el will lose!”

“He’s Siavahda’s _nejika_. _Help him win,_ ” Vladishka snarled.

“As much as I’d love to, I can’t.” The healer pointed to Xavier, at the nimbus of energy and the burns on the hands of all who touched it. “The original soul’s mana has gone into a defensive mode to prevent interference. They’ll have to battle it out on their own.”

 *

 _Xavier dives, panic soaring—_ dragon, he’s a fucking **dragon**!— _and everything goes blue, bluebell-blue glass and a hissing like half a hundred snakes tossed onto a barbeque._

_A shield. A wall of blue between him and the fire, and thank the fucking Goddess even though he has no idea how he did that._

_The flames stop coming, and Xavier scrabbles to his feet: the shield wasn’t quite large enough, because his hair’s singed and there are spark-burns on his hands, but he’s pretty much fine._

_And there’s a dragon, a gods-damned_ dragon _just_ standing _there, and no, he doesn’t know what to do with that. There’s seeing a dragon-ish person, a humanoid lizard, and there’s_ this _, and he just—he can’t—_

_It opens its mouth (he’s seen buses smaller than the thing’s, than Nakir’s head) and he’s not so brain-dead as to stand still and wait for it: he jumps aside as another tower of flame falls, barely missing him. It slams into the shield and this time there’s no scream as the spell is put under pressure._

_Magic. Siav’s, his, it doesn’t matter—if he doesn’t figure out how to use it fucking fast he’s going to be charcoal. His heart is trying to beat itself out of his chest and he can’t stop staring, at this monster that’s nothing like any dinosaur he’s ever heard of, like nothing he’s ever imagined—_

_It, Nakir, Nakir drops his jaw and hisses and leaps into the air, and, okay, think fast Xavier, think_ really fucking fast—

_He sprints for the rocks, ducks low and streaks under the granite cover, twisting away from the new barrage of blue and gold and crackling blood-red fire._

_Think._ Think _. He’s not sweaty in this weird mind-place, but he’s out of breath and there’s sand everywhere, somehow it’s gotten in his shoes. How the hell do you kill a dragon? Does he_ want _to kill Nakir? Nakir was going to kill him, for all his pretty regrets over it._

 _Regardless, Xavier has to win. Non-negotiable. He is_ not _dying, even if dying is ceasing to exist instead of being blown up by a grenade, the way he thought he’d go. Dying—Siav, or whatever the bitch’s name is, doesn’t fucking deserve it._

_There’s not much space here: it’s just a couple of boulders propped together, and Xavier’s lying on his stomach in the sand. He hopes there aren’t scorpions or something, that’s all this mind-fuck needs—_

_And that’s when it hits him. This desert, it’s_ him _, Xavier—the blank white sky, the rocks, the sand and the scorpions that may or may not exist—it’s all in Xavier’s mind._

All right, gecko, _he thinks to himself, praying he has the right of it, that this will work,_ let’s fucking play.

_And after the next bout of flame ends, he rolls out from under the stones._

 *

_Walk-in. Not an incarnate—a walk-in._

Vladishka retreated to the wall, where she could be in shock and out of the way.

What had she done? Siav needed Nakir, needed him as she needed air. Moreso. And Vladishka had killed Nakir’s birth-body, leaving him trapped inside Xavier.

If Nakir lost—if Xavier destroyed him, as would be so easy to do—then Siavahda was dead. And Duranki with her.

And yet Vladishka didn’t want Xavier to lose, either. She owed him—owed him more than she would ever be able to repay, even if he didn’t know it yet.

Reassurance, so warm it was almost tangible, washed through her from Rekeishan. She could easily imagine zéiz expression, if zé were here—that small smile, the one that said that yes, things were bad, but they would work themselves out.

She had no idea how zé had held onto zéiz optimism after the life zé’d led.

She sent gratitude back to zém as the door opened, and a girl-child ran through it. Obiri eyes picked out the sigil on the parchment note she bore: the five-rayed sun with an open hand inside it. Scrawled hastily, Vladishka still recognised it—Lorellor had sent a message, then, rather than come himself. Which meant that he wasn’t going to come.

She tried not to be afraid as lightning spat and snarled around Xavier’s body, as he thrashed under the nimbus and the scales spread like rot, only to dissolve again like sugar in water. She tried not to think of who she wanted to win, of who she _needed_ to win.

She watched, because it was her mistake that led to this, and she owed both of them, Nakir and Xavier, that much.

 *

 _Xavier throws himself to his feet and runs straight across the sand, ignoring the cold of Nakir’s shadow falling on him. He’s not running_ to _something, not running_ away _, just_ running _, moving, arms and legs pumping and blood rushing and heart pounding and this is it, this is what it feels like to be alive when you might not be in a few seconds, there’s a dragon overhead and he’s running and all of him,_ all of him _is focussed on the stretching plain of sand and stone._

_It’s like his kind of magic, really. You can’t let yourself think about failure._

This is me _, he thinks, running and running, faster and faster, feeling power flow into his legs, pushing him on, this is what it feels like to_ be alive _,_ this land, this sky, this stone and heat, this is **me!**

_So change for him. Let his-their surroundings hear him and answer, the way he called to his own human magic from across the abyss in the midst of ritual; let the world change the way his own human magic has always changed the world, shaped by need and a belief so strong it chisels reality—_

_Let it_ change _!_

**_ Now! _ **

)0(

_It does._

_Ice. Freezing, snow-covered, frost-kissed_ ice _. It spider-webs from his moving form, thick ropes that spin into rivers that gush over the sand and stone, turn them into cold and frozen. Glittering shining blue-tinted beautiful, it devours the landscape like an ocean, gulping this world down, faster and faster, powered by his running, little human in a hamster wheel, making it spin and spin._

 _The ice races to the horizon and spreads upwards into the sky, staining it grey and then black, like night, a storm, a_ blizzard _._

_The cold leeches into Xavier too, but only for a minute or two. He doesn’t know if all mana is reactive but Siav’s is; almost as soon as he feels the chill in his muscles a faint gold glow sweeps over his skin in a skin-tight suit of heat, fingertips to the ends of his hair._

_He wants to laugh with relief, looks up and the dragon is already struggling against the gelidity beating at his scales with frost-sharp fists. Xavier’s a lone human, a small figure in this enormous ice-field, but it’s him that holds the cards now—he’s the one with the control._

Not so condescending now, are you?

_Can Nakir hear the thought? Because he shatters the silence with a roar that shakes the air, makes Xavier stumble to a halt (it’s not like he can keep running anyway, slipping and sliding on the slick ice) and Nakir dives, red-and-gold eyes reflecting the light that comes screaming out of his mouth._

_The heat reaches ahead of itself, and the ice beneath Xavier is suddenly slicker still with water—but he only manifests his desires, changing the setting once more, manipulating it. A screaming wind slams Nakir to the side in the sky as the flames are abruptly snuffed out; and Xavier sends daggers of ice flying through the storm to slash at Nakir’s wings. The dragon roars and blood falls like rain, warm and spicy on Xavier’s lips, nothing like human blood at all._

_Nakir pulls himself up into the dizzying heights of this dark ice-locked world, a glint of shadowed gold the only clue as to his position in this new landscape._

_But Xavier can feel him. He can feel each beat of the dragon’s wings in the air, can feel the heat of him, the breath spiralling like mist into the freezing air. Can feel it because Nakir’s soul is inside his heart, inside_ him _, in some strange, screwed-up way. And it doesn’t matter how hard Nakir tries to hide in the cloudless, starless sky, how high his wings carry him out of Xavier’s sight._

_Because he doesn’t need his eyes to know where the dragon is._

_He wills it so and his Beretta is in his hand, and that’s it, he is_ done _: raises it two-handed and the bullet tears from the gun in a star-burst of white-blue light, a shockwave of heart-scream pearl lightning that flares up in the darkness, power moving from his heart to his hands to the gun and the bullet and shooting like an arrow into the sky—_

 _An arrow? A_ comet—

 _And for a split second, the landscape is lit like day, and Xavier has that moment to see Nakir’s dragon-form so high above him. Just a split second before all that light and all that power—all that mana and strength, all the force and emotion and pure, raw_ feeling _he can muster crashes into the dragon of ruby and gold, crashing like a falling star in reverse into that scaled chest._

_A roaring scream echoes off the ice-capped mountains, and down below on the slick ground Xavier stumbles as the comet’s tail disconnects from the tips of his fingers, as that rushing wave of power leaves him, leaving him cold and empty in the freezing world that is his own heart._

_And Nakir falls._


	22. The Beginning of Truth

_“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”—Albert Einstein_

The first person Xavier saw when he opened his eyes—his soul expanding to fill his skin as if rising through water—was Vladishka.

It was an effort to speak, but circumstances demanded it. “Did you know?”

She didn’t pretend not to understand. “I guessed,” she said quietly. Then she smiled, a tired, bruised thing. “But I guessed wrong. I thought you _were_ Nakir.”

The way David had been Siav, without her memories. Xavier nodded—slowly, because nearly everything hurt. “Did everyone get out all right?”

For a second, she looked confused. “Oh, yes, you were unconscious. Yes, everyone’s fine. But Xavier—” She stepped closer. “What _happened?”_

“Don’t you know?” he snapped. “Some fucking lizard showed up in my head. We fought. I won. End of story.” He looked around. “Where am I?”

“In Sarakei. The healers moved you to this room when you won your fight.” Her eyes narrowed. “Nakir—”

“Can you get him out of me?” he asked sharply.

 _“I_ can’t. But someone probably can. We need him out of you.”

 _No shit._ “For Siav.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Without him—”

“She’ll die, yeah, I’ve been told.” _It was never me she wanted._ “How’s this for a plan: you people figure out a way to get him out of my head. When you do, you can come find me, run the op, and then never come near me again.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Where are you planning on going?”

“Home,” he snapped. _Out of this Goddess-damned madhouse._ “Once your docs sign off on me, I’m heading home. Is that all right with you?”

She gazed at him, and instead of answering she quietly left the room.

He stared after her, and when she didn’t return he tore his necklace from around his neck. He was unsure whether his hands were shaking from exhaustion and pain, or rage and loss as he slipped the pendant from his chain. _Guess it was Nakir’s after all_ , he thought, and chucked it at the floor.

He spent the next Goddess knew how long ignoring the glint of gold there and telling himself there was dust in his eyes from Daeron’s damn castle.

 *

Bruadaris looked up with shielded eyes at the approaching pyramid, unsure of the reception he would receive there.

Farien walked beside him, and he was grateful for the Siduro’s presence. The arkadian’s mad white-blond spikes notwithstanding, Farien had been something of a companion on their trek across the bridge, and his aura of brooding fury had created a broad circle the soldiers steered well clear of. The mounted arkadians that had come with Farien formed the rear guard, and the rest spread out around the sides, forming a kind of crescent around the Siduro and the Vovim.

When the city watchmen saw Farien and the badge of office flashing like an angry star at his throat, they hastily parted the gates for him and his soldiers, casting wary, unsure glances the obiri’s way. Daris ignored them—or tried to.

It still hurt.

They made good time towards the palace, weaving through wide, well-tended streets, the people about them casting curious looks at the soldiers. Little children ran in and out among the buildings and stalls, laughing, daring each other to see who would come closest to the Siduro and his battalion.

Daris watched them with longing eyes as they played, the sight of them touching a raw, gaping wound in his heart. Though these children were arkadian, exchanging forms and faces like costumes and masks, they weren’t so different to the children he could have had. His would have been raised far from here, would have played in snow and laughing wind instead of sunlight and warmth, but still...

But even with someone other than Vladishka—even if, someday, his heart healed enough to allow him that—he would leave no heirs. Leave no more scions of Kuvalai’s blood to walk Duranki. Not on his conscience.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the blurred form that slipped beneath one of the horses and into the ring of soldiers. Not until someone laid a hand on his.

Startled, he looked up from the ground to find...a young girl, small and slight. Long-lived children were nearly impossible to age, but her eyes were deep, knowing—ancient. Even as he stared at them (flawless, amethyst, glittering like faceted gems) the girl smiled softly. But it didn’t reach those eyes.

“Why are you sad?” she asked quietly, reaching up with her other hand to touch his cheek, tracing his cheekbone. She had to stand on tip-toe to reach, but it didn’t affect the regality with which she moved, the wise, quiet confidence in herself. “The sun is shining. The day is fine for playing. The bees in the orchards give us honey, and the flowers smell sweet. Why do you cry?”

He smiled weakly, pulling back gently from her hand on his cheek. “I’m not crying, little one,” he answered, just as softly. Around him, the soldiers had stopped, but Farien was holding them back, saying something in a swift, near-silent voice.

The girl frowned again, and the hand that had rested on his face moved to his chest, one slim finger tapping over his heart. “Not on the outside! In here.”

Her words were swiftly bringing the tears ‘in here’ to the outside as his vision blurred, the sweet, gentle innocence of this one child enough to bring his careful walls crashing down.

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered, trying to smile past the tears staining his eyes, like drops of blood against the red background of his irises. “Don’t worry about me. Go and…go and play with your friends. Forget about me.”

She met his eyes then, and, briefly, he was stunned—lost and almost drowning in clear, indigo depths that swirled with something magical.

“Everyone matters,” she told him quietly, with undeniable authority. “No one deserves to be forgotten.”

Her hand fell from his chest, but she didn’t let go of his hand. Her skin was warm against his cold, bloodless palm—and she didn’t look away from his heart-stricken eyes.

He couldn’t find the words to speak, to thank her, even to ask her name. Did she know how grateful he was for those few words of comfort? Did she have any idea of how much pain she’d soothed, like a healing balm placed on a red and weeping wound?

“Remember that,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “Remember that you are not your blood, not your family. What runs through your veins isn’t important. It’s what’s in _here_ ,” and she stood on tiptoe again to tap one fingertip against his forehead, “and in _here_ that counts.”

She tapped his heart again: he was speechless.

“Remember,” she said again—and then she was gone, vanishing like a dream that was sweet and tender in sleep, but steals away with the dawn.

 *

“I’d like a few minutes alone with my cousin.”

The healers looked at each other, but murmured obedience. A few deft touches, to set their potion bottles and crystals where a stray gesture wouldn’t knock them over, and they left quietly.

“What’s wrong?” Kheylan asked the moment they were gone.

Of course he could _seln_ her, feel the ghost of her emotions. She had been so long on Earth; it would take a while to remember that everyone—every obiri—had such insight into her now, not just Aveyar and the other Civatateo.

“Xavier wants to go back to Earth,” Vladishka said quietly.

She had expected indifference from Kheylan—that was why she’d come, to the one person she knew wouldn’t care. But instead she _selned_ his confliction, something sore and tender like a bruise underscoring the apathy he tried to project.

“You have to let him,” he said. “The _drac_ _ŭlan_...”

“I _know_ ,” she snapped. Giving Xavier the cuff had honour-bound the whole family to him, to protect and guide and assist any way they could. “But he doesn’t... I haven’t...”

“You haven’t told him,” Kheylan murmured. “No, of course not. When was there time?” He sighed. “I have no advice for you.”

She rubbed her face. Already she was growing tired again. What she wouldn’t have given for a week’s rest in bed with Rekeishan. “You’ve certainly changed your tune,” she said idly. No doubt he could _seln_ how unidle her interest was. “Just what happened back there, after I went Impaler?”

Kheylan frowned at her. “Your speech has become horribly mangled since your stay on Earth,” he complained.

She just waited.

He looked away first. “He saved my life.”

Vladishka’s eyebrows shot up with surprise, but she didn’t say anything. _So he would have won himself a_ dracŭlan _even if I hadn’t given him one_ , was on the tip of her tongue, along with _and now you’re blade-brother to a human_.

“I had already saved his,” Kheylan said sharply as though he’d heard the thought, but he was still looking at his hands and not at her. “He was only repaying the debt.”

“If you say so,” Vladishka said lightly. Whatever Xavier’s reasoning had been—and she didn’t believe Kheylan’s theory for one minute—it only made her feel worse. He’d saved her cousin’s life, and when he got back to Earth...

“I’ll take him back once the healers clear him,” she said finally. _I should get it over with._ “He won’t believe me when I tell him, not now he knows we need Nakir. He’s just going think I’m trying to make him stay.”

“Nakir?”

Kheylan didn’t know. Vladishka sighed. “It’s a long story.”

 *

“Bruadaris?”

He turned to Farien, quickly brushing the back of his hand across his face as he remembered where he was. Slipping back behind his mask, eyes hardening as he took in the surrounding soldiers.

“I’m fine,” he murmured, reining in his instinctive reaction to snap. Farien had warred with his own soldiers for Daris’s sake—snarls were no way to repay him. “Who was that girl?”

Farien eyed him strangely for a moment before he turned to give their escort orders. HIs hand remained on the obiri’s wrist as the soldiers started to move again, and then tugged at it. “I’ll tell you as we walk.”

Frowning, Daris did as bid, only relaxing when Farien let go. Glancing up and down the street, he could see the knots of shapeshifter children—all girls—darting up and down the packed-dirt road. One jumped into the air, transforming into a sapphire-hued bird with trailing feathers half-way through her leap. More immediately copied the first, and in moments there was a flock of jewel-feathered birds flying across the street, hawks and kestrels, sparrows and robins, eagles, a hummingbird small enough to fit in his palm.

But the girl with the violet eyes had disappeared.

“She’s an orphan,” Farien began, and Daris glanced at him. “Or at least, no one in the city’s claimed her as kin. No parents, no siblings, no far-flung cousins that anyone knows of.”

“Does she live in one of the orphanages?” There weren’t many such establishments among the Annunaki; the long-lived races especially had cripplingly low birth-rates. Children were unspeakably precious; those unlucky enough to lose both their parents nearly always had relations or friends delighted to take them in.

But Farien nodded his head—a negative, for an arkadian. “No one knows where she lives, or where she stays. We don’t even have a name for her.”

Daris stared at him. “You _know_ of a child without a home, and you do nothing?”

“We’ve tried,” Farien explained as they turned a corner, the rainbow-flock of birds-that-were-children vanishing as they left the street. “But we can’t find her. She just turns up every now and then—sometimes with a different face, different clothes, different hair, but she can’t or won’t change her eyes.” He shrugged. “That’s how they recognize her—the common people, that is. There’s a dozen families that give her meals and clothes whenever she shows up, and there must be a hundred children that she plays with.”

“Not to cause offense, but why are there so many who provide for her?” Daris asked. “Without reporting her to the authorities, or taking her in?”

Even as he asked, he knew the answer. He’d seen it in her eyes, the veiled _something_ behind the crystal-clear colour, soaked into the very lines of her.

“Gratitude,” Farien told him easily, unaware of the obiri’s thoughts. “She works wonders with mana—she turned up first about six years ago, when the poorer parts of the city were struck by burning fevers. It was so bad Rek sent the court healers to try and help, but hundreds of people died.”

The arkadian met his eyes. “And this little girl could heal these fevers with just a touch of her hand.”

Daris was speechless.

“So you see why there are so many that feel they owe her a debt,” Farien continued, directing the soldiers left at a cross-roads. “She saved their children, their brothers and sisters, their parents. They’ll always look out for her, whenever she’s around. But she won’t stay in one place for long, no matter how anyone tries.”

“How old _is_ she?” Daris asked, frowning, trying to work it out in his head. “Six years ago… She didn’t look old enough to perform that kind of magery _now_.”

Farien gave a wry grin. “I don’t care what she looks like—I think she’s older than I am. And I don’t report her to Rek, or Siav, or the authorities for unlicensed healing, just like I don’t try and get her into an orphanage. She shows up every couple of years, maybe once in six months if we’re lucky, and I let her live the way she wants to. She’s happy and she’s healthy—what right do I have to set her boundaries that would take that happiness away from her?”

‘Castle’ Sarakei was before them now, the tiered pyramid half-hidden behind the walls that surrounded it. In the shadows it cast Daris gave Farien a piercing glance.

“You were one of those struck by the fevers, weren’t you?”

And Farien told him “Yes.”

 *

A little while later Vladishka had to tell the story again. Her mother, the _kucandrin_ Enandir, and Beryl, Farien’s mother and Arcadia’s _kucandrin_ , sat around a table and listened closely as she repeated what the healers had told her.

“And Nakir’s birth-body is dead,” Beryl said when she was finished.

Vladishka nodded. “I killed him—it,” she corrected herself. “From what Siav said, I thought that Xavier was Nakir, with his memories behind a lock. I intended to place him beyond Daeron’s reach.”

“A reasonable assumption,” Enandir commented quietly. He looked out of place in the meeting room—only a few hundred years older than Vladishka, he seemed too young to be _kucandrin_ —practically a regent—of Kern-Rois. “And thus a reasonable course of action.”

Beryl nodded. “I didn’t mean to criticise,” she told Vladishka—more bluntly than was normal, but then, she had been Siduro before she was _kucandrin_. “The important thing now is finding a way to separate Nakir from this human.” She ran her fingertips over Sashka’s back, Beryl’s guardian currently in the shape of a sapphire-blue beetle resting on the edge of the table top.

“That’s not all,” Vladishka interrupted before her elders could begin discussing esoteric theory. Quickly, in sparse, cold words, she lay out the Emperor’s betrayal for them. “There’s no way this came out of the blue,” she finished. “If we dig, I’ve no doubt there’ll be more.” _As if this wasn’t enough._ She wanted Alumit’s head, but the Dracula shot her a quick glance that warned her to keep quiet. They would discuss it later, her eyes said.

Vladishka didn’t mind. Her mother’s gaze was as cold and brutal as she could ask for.

The two _kucandrel_ sat in shocked silence for a few moments. The obiri let them process.

“Then we must find him,” Enandir said finally. The tattoos around his eyes pulsed with light, and he didn’t sound surprised. Almost as if he had expected... Something.

“A trial?” Beryl asked.

“An execution,” the Dracula said coldly.

The _kucandrel_ exchanged glances, but neither looked appalled by the suggestion. They seemed to be considering it.

Sashka buzzed quietly, the sound a thoughtful hum.

“If Rek had died, it would have killed Vladishka,” Beryl said thoughtfully, with ice. Beryl had all but raised Rekeishan after zéiz father died. “Even an AnKi cannot kill another realm’s AnKi-ja-morë.”

“And the sooner Siav is crowned, the better,” Enandir added softly.

“Yes.” Beryl didn’t so much as hesitate. _And why would she?_ Vladishka thought to herself. Alumit was AnKi to Azrath and Arcadia, but the rest of the Empire had been waiting for Siavahda to come of age for near on a century now. First Kern-Rois, ravaged by drought and famine and plague for millennia—the planet’s scars were only just beginning to heal since they found Siav, their missing AnKi-ja-morë—and Niflheim, their AnKi-ja-morë equally lost for almost as long. And the rest: Sysarvinen, Felidyia, Tír na nÓg, each of them gradually passing to Siav as the other AnKien-morëz abdicated or died, as fate or Zysainae-Irkalla pulled strings to array a mighty power behind the First Mahoroive. AnKien weren’t like normal rulers: they were _needed_ , necessary for everything from a fertile harvest to their people’s health. _Siav_ was needed.

“We’ll have to call the other _kucandrel_ ,” Beryl said slowly. “We’ll need them all to brand Alumit.” She looked to the Dracula. “And other AnKien.” No regent, no matter how powerful, could cast an AnKi down.

“I will be most happy to assist,” the Dracula assured her. “And I will set the Civatateo to hunt him.”

“Our seekers will be glad of the help,” Enandir said, and Vladishka wondered whether Aivorn—who had been one of the seekers sent to find Kern-Rois’ missing AnKi-ja-morë—would volunteer to track down Alumit.

“You should send a message to Zaixaiae,” she said suddenly.

All three of them looked at her in surprise. Sashka morphed into a gecko and ran up Beryl’s arm to curl up on her shoulder. “What?” Enandir asked.

“She’s Nakir’s mother, isn’t she? She might know of a way to separate him from Xavier.” Vladishka had forgotten Zaixaiae, and from the expressions on their faces she guessed the others had too. It was the kind of thing you _made_ yourself forget, because you couldn’t know it, think about it, and still function.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Beryl admitted, petting Sashka absently. “And the _daruk_ should be told of Alumit’s betrayal as much as the draconians should.”

“The _daruk_ I leave firmly in your hands,” the Dracula said wryly.

Sashka’s lizard tongue flicked at the obiri AnKi, and Beryl grinned.

“Has Xavier spoken to you?” Enandir asked Vladishka. “How is he responding to all this?”

Vladishka considered her words carefully before she let them leave her lips. “Unless Lorellor tends him, he’ll be a few days healing from the battle.” She didn’t specify whether she meant the confrontation with Daeron or Nakir. “But he wants to go home. To his own world.”

“Can we let him leave?” Beryl asked sharply. “And risk Nakir’s soul?” _And risk Siav?_ went unspoken.

“He has said he’ll return, when we have a way to separate Nakir from him,” Vladishka said cautiously. _And I doubt he’ll want to stay on Earth long anyway_ , she thought, guilt curling at the edges of her gut.

“I would rather he stayed,” Enandir said warily. “If anything should happen to him... Without a birth-body to return to, Nakir will die if Xavier does, will he not?”

Vladishka shrugged. “I’m no mage,” she said. _But I’d think so,_ she added privately.

“It will have to do,” the Dracula said, somewhat gently. “My daughter gave Xavier a _drac_ _ŭlan_. If he wishes to return to Earth, my family are honour-bound to assist him.” That the Dracula-Imperials would get between the Empire and Xavier if they had to went unspoken, but they all heard it nonetheless.

Beryl sighed. “My mother told me obiri always make things complicated,” she complained, but without real feeling. “All right. I suppose we can keep him while he heals?” she asked, looking between the two vampires.

“If you promise to give him back,” the Dracula said dryly.

Beryl grinned, her teeth perfectly white and straight against her ebony face. “Oh, you’ll get him back. Wrapped in so many wards he’ll make the _sacrym_ look like unattended dates on a fruit seller’s stall, but you’ll get him. That is,” she looked to Vladishka, “if my sources are correct in telling me that Earth’s null is broken?”

Vladishka stilled. “They are,” she said quietly. “It is.”

“Good. Then spelling him won’t be a waste of time,” Beryl said crisply.

“Indeed not,” the Dracula murmured. She glanced at the two _kucandrel_. “May I prevail upon you for lodgings here? Rekeishan should not be moved, they tell me, and considering recent events I am unwilling to return to Sheol without zém.”

They could have taken offense, Beryl and Enandir, for the implication that she didn’t trust them to take care of her daughter’s consort. But Beryl especially had experience with obiri, and Enandir had enough sense for two, so they merely nodded. “Of course,” Beryl said simply. “I’ll have the chamberlain find rooms for you and your women.”

Even Beryl, though, Vladishka thought wryly as they all stood and bid their farewells, always forgot that the power in obiric culture was equally balanced between the genders. ‘Women’, indeed. Mordecai’s court would throw a fit if the Dracula went to war—and it had been war, going up against her uncle was always a war—and left the men and _oseteir_ at home!

Neither Beryl nor Enandir made any apologies for what had happened to Rek, and neither obiri expected them to. They hadn’t been the ones to hand zém over to Daeron.

But she hoped that the Civatateo found Alumit before the Empire’s seekers did. She wanted to make sure that the Emperor was very, very sorry before she took his head from his shoulders.

For what he had done to Rekeishan, she would make him beg for it.

 *

Xavier tried to sleep. There was nothing else to do but be angry or cry, and both were just a waste of time. And he was exhausted, more tired than he could ever remember being. Occasionally women came in and out of his room to wave their hands over him, gesturing for him to drink from bottles of coloured glass and passing glowing crystals over his hands and head. They didn’t talk to him.

They pocketed their sparkly rocks and left, and he tried to sleep. Tried not to think.

Failed miserably.

Time passed. Pain came and went, a grinding throb in his broken wrist and a white, hot-razor thing under his skin that spiked sharply whenever he tried to move. It made him nervous—it felt serious—but the doctors (or whatever they were) didn’t seem worried about him. He couldn’t work out whether or not that was a good sign. Possibly they just didn’t care, as long as Nakir’s soul was safe. A box could be a mess on the outside so long as the precious thing it contained was unharmed, right?

He slept. When he woke there was a gleaming green cast on his wrist and a tray of food on the bedside table. He ate with his fingers, unable to figure out how to use the unfamiliar cutlery, making himself ignore the acid-burn pain that came with every gesture. Sticky rice rolls with fruit centres, a mash that tasted of almonds and cinnamon, meat that was vaguely reminiscent of chicken baked in honey and leaves—it was all strange, but it tasted fine and took away some of the terrible hollow feeling. He ate it all and licked his fingers clean after, drank the water they’d left in one long draught, and tried to sleep again.

When he woke again Kheylan was sitting on a chair, playing with the dragon pendant. It caught the light and flashed as it moved over and under his fingers, the glimmer echoing the long stripe of white in his hair. “I was surprised to find this on the floor,” he said idly as Xavier sat up. “I was under the impression it was something precious to you.”

He lowered his hands, slowly and carefully, to his lap; the glint of gold vanished, perhaps into his sleeve. Xavier wondered if Kheylan meant to give it back, or if he’d keep it. Wondered, not wanting to but unable to push the thought away, what Siav would do if he did.

“They stitch you up already?” he asked.

“Forgive me if I don’t show you the bandages,” Kheylan answered with a wry grin. His braid was messy, wisps of silky hair escaping from it, and his complex tunic had been replaced with a soft-looking set of loose shirt and leggings, very like the ones Xavier had woken up wearing. But Xavier’s were white, like the rest of the room, and Kheylan’s were black. “But—yes. Bar this,” he touched his fingers to the thick white streak in his hair, “they tell me I will make a full recovery. My vanity, I think, will survive.”

“Good. I’m glad.” And it was true, but—distant. Far away.

“Because of you,” Kheylan continued, as if Xavier hadn’t spoken. Another man, a human man, would probably look at his hands or the floor, but Kheylan’s amaranthine eyes met Xavier’s fearlessly, even demandingly—demanding recognition, demanding an answer. “Why did you do that? _How_ did you do that?”

“Do what?” Xavier wasn’t sure he had the energy for this. “I’ve done a lot lately; you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“You saved my life,” Kheylan said. “I would like to know why.”

Xavier _definitely_ didn’t have the energy. “Because if I hadn’t you would have died,” he said finally, resisting the desire to pinch his nose and close his eyes. He could feel a headache building. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

“No.”

“ _Why not?_ ” he snapped.

“Because you have no reason to care whether I live or die,” Kheylan said slowly, as though speaking to an idiot, as though it were obvious.

Xavier gaped at him, but the obiri was clearly serious. It was apparently incomprehensible to him that people could possibly just do things because they were the right thing to do.

“Do vamp—obiri only step in when it’s someone they know, then?” he asked finally.

Kheylan frowned. “Of course not,” he said, still in that _you’re being an idiot_ voice. “But you are _human_.”

And abruptly Xavier got what he was trying to say.

“So because I’m human, I should have let you die?” he demanded, rage growing sweet and easy behind his eyes. “Humans, what, we don’t have any, any kind of _honour_ , we can’t be good people, we’re just—what? What the fuck _are we_ _?”_

“Apes,” Kheylan said, and Xavier just stared at him, taken aback by the ease of that declaration, by the calm, cold anger that met Xavier’s like a clashing blade. “You, all of you, are animals who learned the trick of making fire and stumbled across the wheel, and you think it makes you special. You wear clothes and think it gives you a right to crush and cage those who go in fur and feather; you walk the earth on two feet and believe it is yours to burn and poison and _ruin_ ; you abandon your children with ease and leave them to starve; you even _kill each other_ , so often that it barely bears remarking upon. You and yours are worse than _animals_ —”

“Oh like you’re so perfect!” Xavier shouted. “You fucking hypocrite, I saw you with the fomoiri, all of you doing your best to kill those things!”

“They were not obiri,” Kheylan said icily. “Only the mentally ill kill their own among us, and that rarely.”

“So you have _no crime_? No pain? No suffering? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Everything’s perfect, all of you are perfect—”

“The fact that we live proves our imperfections,” Kheylan said. Ice. Quiet ice. “But I have seen Earth, and seen Sheol, and I know which is better. No one is homeless in my aunt’s kingdom. No child goes uncared for, unfed and untaught. We do not leave whole _countries_ to starve.”

 _And you do_. Unspoken or not, the words slid between Xavier’s ribs like a knife, because they were true.

“We’re not all like that,” he said finally.

Kheylan snorted; clearly he too thought it a pathetic comeback. “No. The majority of you merely look the other way. I cannot decide if that is _worse_.”

“Yeah, well.” Xavier fell back against the pillows, wincing at the pain that jerked out from his spine. “I’d like to think we’re getting better.”

“Do you hear yourself? Getting better is not something to be congratulated on. There should be no need to _get better_. It—”

“Would you please just shut up?” His head was pounding. “Fine, humans suck, we’re evil, I don’t actually _care_. Next time I’ll let you die, ok?”

For a moment, it looked as though Kheylan was going to honour Xavier’s request. Then he sighed. “That was not what I meant.”

Xavier didn’t bother answering that.

“ _How_ did you do it, then?”

“Oh, have we given up on ‘why’?” Xavier asked scathingly.

“This is more important than why,” Kheylan snapped. _“How_ , Xavier?”

“I pulled the trigger,” Xavier said sarcastically. “Do you know about guns? Because so far I’ve only seen you people fight with exaggerated letter-openers—”

“This is not about your Vesh’dar-cursed guns!”

“Then what are you talking about?” Xavier demanded. “I swear, I have no fucking clue what you’re on about here!”

Kheylan growled. Xavier didn’t know if the sound expressed anger or frustration. “Do you understand what Daeron is?”

“I distinctly remember telling you that no one told me anything. That means no,” Xavier added when Kheylan gave him a look. It wasn’t strictly true—Vladishka had explained the basics of the Vovix—but it was a safe bet he didn’t understand it to the level Kheylan wanted.

“But you know what the Mahorela Aoiveae are?”

Xavier just remembered not to shrug in time. “I know they’re some kind of chosen ones. Meant to save the world, or something like that.”

“Worlds,” Kheylan corrected. He said nothing for a minute. “The Mahorela Aoiveae are souls forged by Zysainae, blessed be Her thousand names, but they are not the only...” He stopped, and tried again. “Kuvalai would not let the challenge go unmet. It created children of Its own—the Vovix. Daeron is the eldest of them.”

Xavier wasn’t sure that he wasn’t still angry, but Kheylan’s voice... “Kuvalai is this first liar person, right?” he asked quietly.

“It is...a god, I suppose you would say. But not. It was born of mortals—of mortal hate, and jealousy, and all the other poisons to be found in the mortal soul. It is evil, distilled and made manifest.” Kheylan shook his head. “I am getting off topic. But Daeron is Its first and favourite son, and you breached his shields, defeated his mana. It is _vital_ that I know how you achieved that.”

“This place just gets crazier and crazier, doesn’t it?” It was no better hearing it a second time—the story Vladishka had told him, and that Kheylan was now repeating, still sounded like the blurb for some trashy fantasy novel, some B-rated film, trite and predictable. Like something that couldn’t possibly be true.

Except that he had felt Daeron’s eyes on him. That weight. The hatred in them. Evil? Xavier wasn’t sure he believed in evil—he’d never believed in the Devil—but there was _something_ there, the same kind of something, maybe, that let him half-believe Vladishka was something more than mortal. Some kind of power humans had never known or touched.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I really don’t,” he added when Kheylan looked about to protest. “I used—I tried to use my magic, my kind of magic. To shield myself. To shield you, when I could. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t spell me. The guns, the knife—I don’t know. I don’t know why they worked.” He hesitated. “Maybe...”

“Maybe?” Kheylan pounced on it, eyes glittering with intensity. “Maybe what?”

Xavier remembered carving the pentacles into the grip of his guns, the hilt of his knife, small and unobtrusive so it wouldn’t piss anyone off. “I consecrated them,” he said slowly. “A long time ago.”

“A blessing? Which god did you call on?”

“None, it wasn’t—wasn’t like that. I just...” He’d designed his own ritual, simple and clean, and left the weaponry on his altar overnight. On the new moon, because it felt appropriate. Kali, Hel, Anat. If he’d called on anyone in the space beneath words, he’d called on them, goddesses of destruction and death and war, and it—the shape of the guns, the knife, on his altar, had seemed to demand darkness. “It was a spell of protection. Maybe. I asked—no one specific, the universe, maybe—to look after me. To guide my hands, if I ever needed to use—ever needed to kill someone.” It had been vague, what he’d asked for. He hadn’t tried to put it into words at the time. Something along the lines of: _if I have to kill, help me do it well. And not get killed doing it._

“And you shielded me,” Kheylan said softly.

Xavier snapped back to the present. “I tried.” It had been so hard—so hard to think, concentrate, believe in it, with his wrist screaming at him and Daeron...

“I wondered why his Keeping was lifted,” Kheylan murmured. “It made no sense.”

“His what?” All these capital letters—Xavier could hear them in the obiri’s voice, a kind of intensity given to some words and not others.

“His gift. His power. He is Siavahda’s _opakaili_ , her opposite. Seeker, Keeper.” Kheylan shrugged, his mind clearly elsewhere. “She seeks and finds, ideally. He controls.”

 _Siav._ Xavier’s heart clenched. “That doesn’t sound much like opposites to me,” he said lightly.

“Really?” Still distracted. “Siavahda protects the other Mahorela Aoiveae. Daeron... _possesses_ the Vovix.”

Possession… Like _demonic_ possession? “Oh.”

“I do not understand how you could have shielded me,” Kheylan said carefully. So that’s what he’d been thinking about so hard. “Humans have no magery.”

Xavier groaned. “Not this again. Look, we _do_. It’s just not the same as yours. It’s not all flashy light effects but it _is_ real, and it _does_ work.”

Kheylan hesitated, and Xavier thought he was about to launch into the ‘humans are animals’ spiel again. But he didn’t. “The evidence does seem to corroborate that,” he said instead, quiet and thoughtful and clearly confused. “No other explanation for what happened makes sense to me.”

Xavier rose his eyebrows with surprise. “I didn’t think you’d accept it so easily.”

Kheylan shrugged his shoulders. “It was not _my_ power that freed me from Daeron’s,” he said simply, and the way he said it, the line of his body, if Daeron was a demi-god or something then...

“You’re” _weaker_ , he almost said, but that seemed rude, “not as strong as him. As Daeron. Magically. Are you?”

“No.” Kheylan didn’t look worried by this. “No one is, save Siavahda. They are—”

“Opposites, yes, I know. You said.” _But you stepped in front of me anyway._ Kheylan had gone up against Daeron—knowing he couldn’t win? “But you fought him anyway,” he said slowly.

“Of course.” Like it was nothing. Obvious. Simple.

But it wasn’t. There was saving someone’s life because you were there and you could and it was the right thing to do—that was what Xavier had done. Because letting Kheylan die, when Xavier could prevent it, was wrong, even if Kheylan was a git.

But Xavier hadn’t expected to die in his place. He hadn’t gone into a scenario he thought was certain death. He hadn’t meant, intended, to trade their lives.

Kheylan had.

“You don’t even _like_ me,” he burst out, stunned and appalled on so many levels.

Kheylan frowned. “What has that to do with anything?”

Xavier stared at him. “Apparently nothing,” he said finally. “Gods, you people are weird.”

“And evidently misinformed about your species,” Kheylan said blithely. He leaned forward, wincing a little as the movement no doubt pulled on his injuries. “Tell me more of this human magic...”

 *

The entrance hall of Sarakei might have been an empty desert of cool marble and crystal, but the rest of the palace was a flurry of frenzied activity.

Bruadaris could only stare at the servants and courtiers, the cook-girls and stable-girls running here and there, weaving in and out of the well-dressed adults hurrying through the hallways. Scents whirled around his head, tugging his attention in a hundred different directions—incense, roasting meat, cinnamon and wood-smoke, the ozone of spells being cast—and the voices calling to each other, shouting orders, commands, requests drowned out his own thoughts. They were surging through the air like invisible arrows, and echoing inside his head as he unknowingly walked through mind-threads cast out like fishing nets. He heard snatches of conversation before he stepped through them—not enough to understand, just enough to confuse and drown his mind in sensation and noise.

Farien had dismissed their escort as they’d entered the courtyard—the cavalry vanishing to hand their finely-bred steeds to the teenage stable-girls, the foot-soldiers leaving them for the barracks—and now the Siduro was leading him through the constantly-moving maze of people.

Of course, Daris knew what the cause for all this was. Siav had returned to them—the AnKi-ja-morë no one had seen for over twenty years. Of course the court was excited, almost manic in their effort to make Sarakei once again worthy of housing the daughter of the Emperor. It was only to be expected, really.

That didn’t mean he had to like it. Mordecai’s court was never so… so _undignified_ as this.  And if ever there _was_ a need for haste, only the fastest of dragons could out-fly a flitting vampire, and few could see movement at such a pace. The Dracula’s court never looked busy—even when it was.

Farien was speaking in hurried tones to a passing servant, and Daris, unable to understand the arkadian they were speaking and reluctant to cast a translation spell, waited for the two to finish. His eyes glanced up and down the hall, wondering where Farien was taking him.

“Have you had the Emperor told of Siavahda’s injuries?” he asked quietly as they began moving again. They abruptly came to a far less populated area of the palace. “Surely he should be the first to know. He’s her _father_.”

“In name only,” Farien muttered, angrily increasing his pace. “Things have changed since school, Daris. Alumit never really got over Aleron’s death—and in his heart of hearts, I don’t think he believes Siav can be a good AnKi. I don’t think he believes in her, full stop. Nothing she does is good enough for him.”

They came to a stop outside Beryl’s study, one of the only rooms in this part of the pyramid to have a door. Farien knocked on it, and Daris focused on appearing calm and collected as the arkadian _kucandrin_ called for them to enter.

The chamber within was dominated by the hundreds of mirrors set into the walls, each one identical but for the colour of the frame separating it from the rest. As Farien closed the door behind them Beryl was standing before four mirrors across the room, her hands spread, speaking to the figures in the glasses. They were not, Daris noticed instantly, her own reflection; from the detailed reports of Daeron’s spies he recognised Iriandel and Xandira, the _kucandrel_ of Sysarvinen and Niflheim respectively, before Beryl bowed her head and flicked her fingers. The spells dissolved, and the mirrors showed only nur own face.

She turned to them, then. “Farien, Bruadaris,” she said with a small smile, acknowledging them both. The jewels of her namesake glittered in her arms. “I’m glad you’re both well. There were no difficulties, I trust?” she asked her son.

Farien shook his head. “None.”

It was a lie, Daris thought, remembering the tension of the arkadian soldiers, but only a small one.

“Good.” She gestured for them to sit, the jewels in her arm fracturing the light. Daris would rather have remained standing, but he sat down on the overstuffed, table-high cushions out of politeness. The gecko he had taken for a paperweight abruptly became a cat, and it was only because he knew full well who Saskha was that he didn’t start. “Now. As glad as I am to see you, Bruadaris, there is some question of what to do with you.”

“It would be safest to execute me,” he pointed out bluntly, keeping his expression a wax mask. “If you want Daeron stopped once and for all.”

To her credit, Beryl didn’t flinch. Saskha only blinked, slowly. “True. But when Farien’s message arrived,” the servant he’d been talking to, Daris guessed, “I sent to the Dracula to ask her opinion.” _So where is she?_ Daris wondered, surprising himself with the spite in the thought. “She would rather not see you killed, and neither would I. Thus.”

It took Daris a moment to process her calm statement. They weren’t going to kill him? Relief mingled with angry frustration—letting him live was madness! They had to see that! If Daeron had not branded his soul with the command long ago, Daris would have taken matters into his own hands years since! “I’m not sure you understand the risk of letting me live,” he said icily, ignoring Farien’s shock and Sashka’s angry hiss. He was not arkadian; where he came from, _oset_ or males would not be whipped for questioning a woman. “I Ascended into my powers nearly a century ago, and I am well versed in their use. There is no prison you can lock me in that I cannot escape, and there is nowhere you can put me that Daeron’s Keeping cannot reach me. There is nothing _I_ can do to keep from obeying him, if he calls me. Distance will weaken the compulsion, but he only has to come close to Arcadia, or wherever I am, to grab hold of me again. At which point I would be his eyes and ears—” _and hands, and knives in the dark_ “within your defences.”

Beryl waited for him to finish. “I am well aware of the risks, actually,” she said calmly, and Daris remembered that the flesh-gems were a mark of a warrior, not a fashion statement. He had seen arkadians catch blades on that armour. “They have been discussed often. The fact remains: we are not going to kill you. If it makes you feel better, we have every intention of making use of you.”

It didn’t.

“It is your choice,” she went on. “I would be glad to offer you sanctuary here. The Dracula has extended the same offer.”

“Arcadia,” he answered instantly. He didn’t need to think about it. If he was going to be a prisoner in a gilded cage, he would not be tortured with it. And watching Vladishka smile and croon at her pathetic consort _would_ be torture.

Neither Beryl nor Farien looked surprised, and Saskha—even as a cat—was obviously smug. “That’s settled then,” Beryl said briskly. “Farien, if you could take Bruadaris to the chamberlain and find our new guest a suite...” She glanced down at the papers Saskha pushed under her nose with one paw, mind clearly already moving on to other things. “The next few days will be very busy, so just concentrate on settling in. Make yourself at home...”

Daris raised his eyebrows, but she had already dismissed them. It was strange, to be dismissed—ever since Daeron had found him, he had never been unimportant. Unwanted, feared, dangerous, miserable—but never something, someone, that could be safely dismissed.

As Farien led him from the room, he wondered if it was a sensation he could grow used to.


	23. Revelation

_“A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of men.”—Tacitus_

Zyvian moved through the barracks, putting her hand on shoulders, helping to dismantle armour, exchanging a quiet word with the ones who needed it. There weren’t many who did—most of Kern-Rois’ standing army were veterans of the civil war, experienced and hardened—but there were some.

By the time she left her men and women to their rest, the sky was dark and Iriel’s courtyard nearly empty.

Nearly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Milanae smiled at her from atop her dragon. Her visor was gone; the eyes left revealed were a bright, silvery blue. The darkness suited her. “I sent my hunters home,” she said, which seemed a non sequitur until she added, quietly, “But I thought I’d stay a while, if you’ll have me.”

“I’m sure _eloi_ won’t mind,” Zyvian assured her. “We’ll find you a suite. It’s the least we can do, for your help today.”

She laughed, throwing back her head so the moonlight rippled over her throat. “Oh, Zyvian!” she gasped. “Are all rois as oblivious as you? How do you ever get anything done?” She grinned at Zyvian’s surprise. “I don’t want a suite, _Tierja_. I’d like to share yours.”

Realisation dawned, immediate and obvious, and electricity tied butterfly knots in her stomach. “I’d be honoured,” she said quietly, simply.

Milanae grinned again. “Good.” She bent over the saddle and deftly began unfastening the buckles holding her withered legs in place. “ _Ajakistan,_ Dax,” she murmured, and her dragon gave a soft groan as it lay down on the smooth ground, curling up like a cat.

“Do you need help getting down?”

In answer the hrimthur fisted both hands in the cloth of her trouser-leg and heaved her leg over the saddle’s pommel. Zyvian held her arms out and caught her as she slid to the ground, bracing to support her.

Her legs, when Zyvian cradled her, were deadweight. Some kind of accident, Zyvian thought vaguely, over a century ago; they had already been paralysed when Zyvian first met her all those decades ago…

Milanae raised her hand to Zyvian’s face, scattering her thoughts, and Zyvian found herself loving the boldness of the gesture, loving it fiercely, the smooth confidence she had in herself and in Zyvian. There was nothing hesitant or meek or shy about Milanae’s mouth on hers.

“Will Dax be all right?” she asked when the other woman’s lips retreated.

“Yes.” Milanae’s fingertip traced the kiss she’d given Zyvian, cool and callused. “Take me inside, _Tierja_.”

So Zyvian did.

 *

Arcadia slept.

Aivorn did not.

Enandir held vigil with him for a short while on the bench outside the healing chamber, but left after an hour, without a word. Servants, perhaps sent by his _eloi_ , came with a tray of food sometime later—he’d missed the meal prepared for the returning soldiers—and later still brought pillows and blankets so that the bench could be made comfortable enough for sleep.

Other than that, he was alone.

Occasionally he saw glimmers of light from under the door, or a woman in the robes of a healer would come sweeping down the hall and enter without speaking a word to him. The lanterns hidden in little niches along the hallway began to glow as night fell. Their light grew steadily brighter. The door opened, and two exhausted looking women walked out and disappeared, no doubt to find their beds. A young girl, one of the pages, appeared around a corner, struggling under the weight of a wooden casket. Aivorn was up in an instant to take it from her, and barely heard her thanks as she knocked on the door and was let in.

They took the box from him, but the war-prince was not admitted.

The lights grew brighter, then dimmed towards dawn. Servants came around again with breakfast; they didn’t seem surprised to see him awake. Perhaps Enandir had warned them, or maybe they were just practised at looking impassive.

The door opened again.

Aivorn rose to his feet as Lorellor stepped out. The alfa was clearly exhausted—lir usually serene face was drawn, lir dark skin paler than usual—but Aivorn ignored that, barely noticed over the pounding of his heart. “How is she?” he demanded.

Lorellor shook his head. “Later,” le murmured. Lir voice was hoarse, rough, perhaps—probably—from singing spells all night.

“No, _now_ ,” Aivorn snapped as the healer made to stumble down the hall. “I’ve been waiting all night, and not one of your unstained healers told me a thing!”

“You can wait a little longer,” the alfa said firmly. “The Emperor and _kucandrel_ should be the first to know...and I need to sleep, Aivorn. Desperately.”

 _“I don’t give a kiss of thorns.”_ Silver light flooded Aivorn’s roisen and he fisted his hands in Lorellor’s silk robe, slammed lir into the wall before either of them could react. “ _Tell me!_ ”

“We don’t _know!”_ Lorellor shouted, and Aivorn’s outburst was to be expected, but this, the ever-calm, quiet healer snapping like this—“Unhand me _now_ , Aivorn.”

He did. And said nothing as Lorellor stalked away without looking back.

 *

“I have your clothes,” Kheylan announced the following morning, breezing into the room while Xavier was still struggling with his breakfast. “Vladishka thought you might prefer your own things.”

“Yes _please_.” Xavier put the plate down on the table carefully; the simple strain made his arm muscles tremble. “Pass it here, would you?”

Kheylan carried the duffel bag to the bed and went back to the chair while Xavier rifled through it. The slightest movement felt draining, as if his skeleton had been replaced with lead while he was sleeping. Worse, the pain hadn’t faded since the night before. Just the expanding of his chest as he breathed felt as though it pulled something, sent skittering knives racing under his skin. He ran his hands over his own clothes and wasn’t sure he had the strength to get up and dress in them.

“What is this device?” Kheylan asked, interrupting Xavier’s maudlin thoughts.

Xavier looked up. Kheylan had found Xavier’s old iPod, was turning it over idly, and Xavier couldn’t decide whether to be angry that the obiri had gone through his things or amused at Kheylan’s obvious attempt to hide his curiosity. “It plays music,” he said at last, deciding on the latter. “Look, come here, I’ll show you.”

Kheylan sat on the edge of the bed, and Xavier struggled upright against the headboard. Kheylan deigned to allow him to assist with the earphones, and Xavier fought not to laugh: at Kheylan’s expression, at the bizarre situation they were in. Kheylan held his braid out of the way and Xavier delicately placed the small buds of plastic in ears which were, he noticed for the first time, ever so slightly pointed.

Xavier saw the moment Kheylan almost jumped off the bed when the music began to play. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, Kheylan listening and Xavier watching him listen. They were so close Xavier could hear the faint hum of the song. He found himself remembering that kiss, and forced himself not to, dragged his mind back into the present.

_A vampire listening to an iPod. Bizarre doesn’t begin to cover it._

“How is it powered?” Kheylan ran a dark gold fingertip over the machine’s smooth casing. “There is no space for the battery.”

 _You know about batteries?_ He shouldn’t be surprised; he’d already seen that obiri had human-like technology. “It’s a special kind of battery. Rechargable.” Xavier shrugged. “Although I probably can’t recharge it here. It’ll have to wait until I get home.”

“Yes, you would need electricity to recharge it, wouldn’t you?” Kheylan reached up and tugged the earphones from his ears. “Few of the Annunaki use it as a power source.”

Few, not none. That was interesting. “Don’t you?” How else did they power their crazy machines, the tablets he’d seen?

Kheylan shrugged, clearly not very interested. “May I borrow this?” he asked instead, holding up the iPod.

“If you want to.” Abruptly Xavier didn’t have the energy for this. “Kheylan, what happened to me?”

“Siavahda’s mana has passed to you,” the obiri said instantly, as if he’d been expecting the question. Maybe he had. “Have the healers not spoken to you of this?”

“No. Maybe. If they tried I didn’t hear.” Xavier was out of breath; he stopped talking so he could breathe, trying not to feel afraid at his own weakness.

Kheylan was watching him intently. “Should I fetch a healer?”

Xavier shook his head. “Tell me,” he managed after a moment, “What that means.”

The obiri didn’t ask what he meant. “I don’t know. No full-blooded human has ever wielded mana before. The results are unpredictable.”

“Is that why I’m in pain? I’m not supposed to have it? Goddess, can it even—can I contain it, or is it going to burn me up?” _Don’t panic. Don’t be afraid. They’ll take Nakir out of you and give Siav her mana back and everything will be fine._

“I don’t know,” Kheylan said again, more intensely this time. “Siavahda could barely contain it. She has—more power than a mortal body can hold. That is why she went into _kyriká_ —overload, shock. Without her _nejika_ to anchor her...”

“I know about Nakir,” Xavier said harshly. “What does this mean _for me_?” If a demi-goddess couldn’t hold all this power...

But they couldn’t let him die. He doubted Nakir would survive Xavier’s death, and they needed _him_ too badly, didn’t they?

“Perhaps a human is so strange a vessel that one could contain it.” Kheylan’s voice was dismissive, clearly not thinking much of the idea. “With any luck it will not long be an issue. The mana is tied to Nakir’s soul; when he is removed from you, it shall become a non-issue.”

It wasn’t at all a satisfactory answer, but sounded like the only one he was going to get. “As long as they do it fast,” he muttered. “I’d rather not be the prime rib on your mana barbeque.”

Kheylan looked at him blankly.

“Yeah, I guess you don’t get many barbeques on your ice planet. Never mind.” Xavier closed his eyes. “Just go away for a bit, please? I’m tired.”

It had the added benefit of being true. Kheylan left without a word—it was starting to look like a vampiric cultural norm.

)0(

Two days of wretched weakness and restless sleep passed. The doctors and nurses Kheylan called healers came and went, and Kheylan himself kept sneaking in while Xavier slept; he was nearly always ensconced in the chair whenever Xavier woke up, no matter the time of day or night (the passing of which Xavier was only vaguely aware of, being in a room with no windows).

Whenever he saw that Xavier was awake, he talked—monologued—about whatever came into his head. With little strength to respond, Xavier lay quiet and listened.

He listened as the obiri mused on the incomprehensibility of magery, the great variation in disciplines. To hear Kheylan tell it, vampire spells were nothing like merai ones, or hrimthurren, or syvin. Apparently. Nagini used magic words, luparrin mages sounded like tribal shamans, and the arkadians had things that sounded like magic wands to Xavier. But he knew human witches who used wands too, and fey magic couldn’t be much more different from the alfar system than Dianic witchcraft from Santeria, could it?

Kheylan talked as though mana were a force, like magnetism or gravity—but then he spoke as if it were a living thing with a personality, or some kind of material (maybe a chemical?) in blood, until Xavier quickly realised that in this, at least, the Annunaki were no different from humans. Neither group had any idea what mana actually _was_ , just some ideas of how to make it work. Like a television: the vast majority of people had no idea how they worked, but could use them nonetheless.

He wondered if anyone had ever likened mana to a tv before.

Kheylan seemed determined to be as distracting as possible, or maybe he was just trying to make up for his insensitivity earlier: either way, whenever he sensed Xavier’s attention wandering, he threw out a comment that was deliberately tantalizing, words that shone like coloured glass in Xavier’s mind, teasing and glittering until they suddenly came together, forming stained-glass windows into a world so different to the one he knew he could hardly bear it. They coaxed him into asking questions, followed him into his sleep so that he dreamed of women warriors riding winged lions, of talking dragons peering between the stars and the moon for a glimpse of the future, of masks made of little mirrors to deflect lies and deceit... _Shedu, daruk, chinta_ , strange words that wove themselves into a rope and pulled him away from fear, misery, and his growing suspicion.

It was easier than he’d expected to let go of them. The pain was fading, and not in the way of a healed injury, suddenly noticed when a thing which hurt yesterday did not today. No, Xavier could feel it draining away moment by moment, like internal bleeding in reverse, pressure not so much released as settling, water released by a dam calming into the trenches of the river. Flooding miraculously avoided.

When Kheylan brought breakfast on the third morning, proudly displaying the square pane of crystal he’d set into the back of the iPod, there was only a faint ache like fading bruises.

“It runs on mana now,” the obiri explained smugly, plucking a strange fruit from Xavier’s breakfast tray. He eyed it speculatively for a moment before taking it apart with his fingernails, as neatly as though with a sharp knife. “Now you can recharge it with ease.”

Xavier turned the little machine over in his hands warily, not sure what to think. “Thanks?” He half expected it to be broken, but when he switched it on everything seemed in working order.

“Your human technology is overly complex,” Kheylan commented as if Xavier hadn’t spoken. “All the—what call you it? _Circuitry_.” He pronounced it contemptuously. “At least you have grown past your need for wires.”

Xavier saw no need to enlighten him that wires simply wouldn’t fit in an mp3-player. “I’m amazed that you managed to put it back together without making it fart rainbows, but thanks.”

 Kheylan inclined his head in acknowledgement. The fruit was gone. Xavier hadn’t seen him eat it. “You seem better.”

“I am. It—the pain’s almost gone.”

“That is good.” Kheylan cocked his head, his expression unreadable. “Unexpected. But good.”

Xavier shrugged—the motion didn’t hurt him at all now—and put down the iPod in favour of food. “Does it mean I can go home soon?”

“Perhaps,” Kheylan said vaguely. “Break your fast, and I will tell you about the arkadian Amazons.”

He should have felt insulted, treated like a child— _shut up and I’ll tell you a story_.

Xavier shoved a piece of fruit in his mouth and ate.

 *

“It’s been _three. Days._ ” Aivorn snarled. “What’s _taking_ so long?!”

“When you are an acclaimed healer, you will gain the right to ask that question,” Enandir said frostily. “Until then—”

“He has a point,” Xandira interrupted. Enandir and Aivorn stood with Beryl in her study, but all the other _kucandrel_ were present in one or other of the mirrors on the walls. “Alumit has vanished without a trace. Even the draconian seekers cannot find him. We need Siavahda.”

“The healers are doing their utmost,” Beryl said to the arrayed faces. Sashka paced the room’s confines, growling deep in her wolf-throat. “They sleep in shifts rather than leave her alone. We have to wait rather than tear them away from her.”

“We cannot wait,” Yyrvis insisted. The snow-leopard werecat flicked his tail back and forth—angrily, worriedly. “The people know something is wrong. They feel it through the _mordrashün._ Soon they will begin to voice their fears.”

“And how will we answer, without an Emperor or an AnKi-ja-morë?” Luada finished for him. Tir na nÓg’s _kucandrin_ shone golden, hair and skin and eyes, so dazzling that it was difficult to look at him directly. Thankfully Beryl had cast a subtle dimming charm upon his mirror. “She _must_ waken.”

“And if she does not?” Iriandel asked sharply. With hair like a waterfall of black demon-blood and the wings of a condor folded against her back, she looked more like a fallen angel than the myths of seraphs her people had inspired on Earth. “If she remains asleep for weeks or months, or even—Zysainae-Enyo make lies of my words—dies? Are we prepared for that?”

Silence hung over the group, each of them—even Saskha, perhaps even Iriandel herself—shocked that she had spoken the words aloud.

“She will not die,” Aivorn said fiercely.

The obsidian alicorn on Iriandel’s brow flashed darkly. “Prince—”

“She _will not die_ ,” he snarled, and ribbons of blackness burst from him in all directions like bolts from a crossbow; glass shattered and screamed, drowning out any reply, any protest, and then they were gone, all of them, banished to where he could not hear them invoking Siavahda’s death.

 *

“Any news on my heading home?” Xavier asked, not looking up from his iPod beyond confirming who had walked through the door.

“Yes,” Vladishka said quietly. She closed the door behind her and sat down on a stool, knees apart, arms on her legs. Nearly bent double with resigned exhaustion. “But we have to talk first.”

Had any words in the history of the English language ever inspired more dread than that simple little phrase? It weighed in his stomach like a lump of ice.

 *

Blood dripped. Daeron watched it fall impassively, patiently waiting for it to fill the four thimble-sized wells cut into the slab of quartz before him. When it was done, he withdrew his bleeding palm and bandaged it while the blood worked its way through the dozens of thread-thin veins carved into the crystal. The crimson lines snaked and weaved their way through the quartz before finally crashing together at its centre.

Murky darkness spread from that point, like a bruise.

He lay his unwounded hand flat on the scrying table, sending his power into it. _Blood to blood_ , perhaps the oldest and simplest of magics. “Eteire.”

 *

She didn’t really mean the _we_. She was the one who needed to talk. Slowly, quietly, Vladishka spoke, each word hard and heavy as a stone and dragged from her mouth like teeth. Her eyes met his the whole way through.

“I don’t believe you,” he said when she was done. “It’s too obvious. You want me to stay here, where you can keep track of Nakir.”

“We could make you stay if we wanted to,” she said quietly. “Without needing to lie.”

 *

Sitting in her impersonal guest suite in Mordecai, flipping the pages of a book she had no interest in reading, Eteire felt a vibration in her blood and looked up, puzzled.

 *

Xavier side-stepped the chilly panic threatening to germinate, thought about the storm inside him, the pain that was fading because it was settling into him. “No,” he said carefully. “I don’t think you could.”

She didn’t answer.

 *

Daeron spread his fingers flat against the scrying table, against the image of his sister’s face drawn in the red, and this time didn’t speak aloud but sent the words through space, through the blood they shared, silver and inky black. _* **Remember**.*_

 *

“I want to go home,” Xavier said again. Didn’t say _you have no right to make me stay._ What did they care about rights? They threw souls into other bodies and stabbed people with swords, set people up to be snuffed out in their own minds. “Enough bull. You come get me when you can get Nakir out of me, but until then, I am going back to _my life_. So make your portal thing or whatever, because I am _done_.”

 *

_“Imagine waking up in a newborn body—an infant—with a century’s worth of memories and experience.”_

Eteire’s hands flew to her head.

_“The culture shock of a new world, learning to cope with a body completely unable to care for itself.”_

Her skull was exploding.

_“It’s much easier to lock memories of your true life away with a spell, to open at a particular time or under specific circumstances.”_

Her body writhed without her permission and knocked the book to the floor, overturned her stool so that she followed it, sprawled on the carpet and didn’t notice, consumed with the raging storm inside her head.

_“That way, by the time you remember who you are you already speak the language, know the geography, the culture.”_

 *

Daeron moved his hand so that his fingertip covered his sister’s mouth in the image in the quartz.

_*_

Eteire tried to scream but no sound came from her mouth, as if the influx of _knowledge-dreams-memories_ were choking her, rushing through and threatening to overflow, tearing apart her brain and restructuring it, throwing open caskets and chests that had been locked and hidden away for so long, so _long_ —

It felt like an eternity, but it was barely a minute before the woman who had been Eteire stared at the ceiling and comprehended it, back in the world once more. _Whole_ once more, her memories restored to their rightful places. Her name—her real name, the one she had given up for so many years—on her lips.

She was in Mordecai. Where no one would think to look for a Vovim.

Merihim smiled.

 *

They let Xavier up out of bed.

He dressed in his own clothes, grimly restoring his weapons to their proper places about his person. Both his guns were reloaded while the healers and Vladishka were talking outside.

The discussion outside the door ended just as he finished zipping up his bag, everything packed away and ready to go—all except the clothes he’d been wearing when he went after Al—after Siav. Bloodied and torn, they were fit for nothing but rags, but at least his leather jacket had survived.

“They’re going to ward you,” Vladishka explained as a handful of women followed her into the room. “Protection spells—”

“I know what wards are,” he interrupted her. Coldly. The story she’d spun him was circling round and round in his head.

She looked away. “All right then.”

They did their thing. Waved their sparkly rocks. There was a bit of a lightshow, but rather than intriguing him he just wanted it to be over. Something like panic and something like excitement was gnawing at his guts; he couldn’t wait to be gone and was more than half terrified of what he would find when he left, when he got there, got _home_.

_She has to be lying. She has to be._

Because the other option was incomprehensible. Like trying to grasp the concept of eternity. A human mind couldn’t do it.

When they were done, and Vladishka led him from the room, he remembered that Kheylan still had Siav’s necklace. Nakir’s necklace.

He told himself he didn’t care, and then told himself that that was true.

 *

_*Daeron? Can you hear me?*_

Daeron smiled. His hand left the crystal; he had no more need of it, not with his sister reaching for him, sustaining half the communication. _*Merihim,*_ he murmured.

He felt her amusement, her satisfaction at a game well-played. _*I take it there was a purpose behind triggering the spell-lock now.*_

 _*Yes.*_ He had no spies within Mordecai; the obiric people were too loyal to Daeron’s sunfire-burnt step-sister. And though there were ways for the Keeper to force loyalty, it was hard to take obiri prisoners alive. With the Dracula not currently in residence Merihim was in a position too valuable to waste. _*Break into my step-sister’s study and bring me everything you find.*_

_*And then come to you?*_

_*Yes.*_ She was moving, probably heading to the Dracula’s office that very moment. _*I think I have a way to find the rest of our brothers and sisters, and quickly. There is no longer any need for you to play...what is the human term?*_

He felt her laughter. _*A sleeper agent?*_

He smiled. _*That.*_ He closed his eyes and embraced her mind, sent his power swimming through her in an electric, fleeting caress. _*Come home to me.*_

She sounded breathless when she replied. _*At once.*_

 *

After his terrible display of temper Beryl banished Aivorn from her study, and his eloi with him, but it was some time later before she felt calm enough to begin repairing the broken mirrors. Piecing shards of glass together required only a simple charm, cast over and over, and the repetitive nature of it was somewhat soothing. But only somewhat, with Iriandel’s words weighing on her mind.

_If she dies if she dies if she dies—_

The arkadian _kucandrin_ tried to banish the thought as she had banished Aivorn, but it was not as easy. And an idea occurred to her, sharply, as she watched Sashka sweep the mirror fragments together with her tail; a way in which Beryl might talk to Lorellor without summoning lir from Siavahda’s side.

The spell that allowed her to talk through her mirrors was not bound to glass.

She did not hesitate, because that was not her way. She put her fingers to a gleaming mirror and sent her mana through it, into the first reflective surface her spell could find within Siavahda’s healing chamber: the stream of water running through its floor.

Sashka paused and watched her.

“Lorellor,” Beryl called—softly. “I would speak with you.”

A face appeared, but not the alfa’s. “Beryl _kucandrin_?” It was a young girl, probably one of the apprentices; she looked overawed to be facing her _kucandrin_.

“Yes,” Beryl said crisply. “I would speak to healer Lorellor.”

The girl chewed her lip. “Le is resting,” she said apologetically, but with a firmness that Beryl approved of—even if it was drawn between Beryl and what she wanted. “Le should not be disturbed.”

Because she could appreciate the girl’s protectiveness, Beryl made her voice gentle. “I am aware of that. But it is important. I must know how the AnKi-ja-morë fares.”

The girl hesitated. But even she could see that this was, in fact, an important matter. “I will fetch lir,” she said reluctantly, and disappeared from view before Beryl could thank her.

In a moment she returned. The angles made it difficult to tell—the girl and Lorellor were kneeling, leaning over a small stream, while Beryl was simultaneously looking into a mirror and looking up at their faces—but the _kucandrin_ thought that Lorellor was leaning on the apprentice’s arm. “You do not look well,” she told Lorellor quietly.

Le made a dismissive gesture, but it was true: haggard and exhausted, lir hair lank, Beryl felt guilty for disturbing lim. Even the cutting motion le made to dismiss her words was weak, lir fingers limp. The alfa had every need of rest. “I am sorry,” Beryl began, but le cut her off sharply.

“She will not wake,” le said bluntly—too bluntly, not like lir usual gentle self at all but rough and brutal and irrefutable. “Ever. I can keep her alive for six months, perhaps nine—and then she will die.”


	24. Interlude the Third

This is what Vladishka told Xavier, the story he thought was just a story.

 *

_Once upon a time, a group of wise men and women realised that humans were in danger of being forever enslaved by the other, mana-wielding races. So they cast a null over the Earth, a barrier that would prevent their kind from working with mana within that realm._

_The mana-wielders left._

_But there were holes in the null, and natural, wild portals still hidden in secret places on Earth. Small numbers of creatures could still move back and forth between the worlds, spirits and alfar and luparri—ghosts and elves and werewolves. Enough to keep the human myths alive for centuries. Souls could pass through—walk-ins who possessed humans for minutes or hours to avert some tragedy, or incarnates who gave up their memories to be born and grow up as humans, to escape tragedies of their own pasts, in their own worlds._

_It was a good place to hide two precious girls, with bodyguards and a healer to keep them safe._

_Siav and Eteire incarnated, moving their souls into human embryos, locking away their memories so they would have time to learn the ins and outs of humanity as natives. Vladishka kept her own body and went to Earth through a portal. She kept her memories, stayed herself._

_They grew up. They came together. They passed messages to their families through Vladishka’s portal and waited to be told it was safe to come home._

_And Siav... Siav cast a spell. The null was never meant to contain the Mahorela Aoiveae; her mana was stronger than its blanket of suppression. She_ changed _it, coded herself and her friends and Vladishka’s vampires into the null as exceptions. She gave them their mana back._

_And, accidentally, slammed shut the portals and the gaps in its weaving. She locked them in._

 *

The story doesn’t end there.

_Siav got home, because soul-mana is stronger than any other kind; she killed her human meatsuit and the incarnate spell took her back to her own body, back through the null._

_Vladishka didn’t have that option. Neither did her bodyguards, her friends. Xavier couldn’t go through the null that way._

_So she—Vladishka—broke it. Broke the null. She wasn’t a mage but she was a Mahoroive, had the raw power that was usually channelled into her Gifts. She wasn’t Siav, but she was a soul-forged daughter of the Goddess, too._

_The null was never meant to contain a Mahoroive_.

 *

_How much power can a Goddess fit into a mortal body?_

_So much. More, perhaps, than She should._

_And Vladishka had let it loose—pointed and aimed and fired—because Siav called, and Siav was the First Mahoroive. Because she Knew things, and she wouldn’t call if she didn’t mean it. If it wasn’t important._

_If it wasn’t worth the backlash._


	25. Epilogue: End of an Era

_“Genocide is the responsibility of the entire world.”—Ann Clwyd_

 

Travelling by portal was nothing like going through _kasadu_ : there were no bright lights, no roaring rush of wind, no pull or dizzying hurtle through space. It was just a step, like walking through a door, and suddenly you were not where the laws of physics said you should be. Instead of being on the other side of the doorway, you were Somewhere Else.

Xavier lurched as the world changed around him: it was like going up the stairs in the dark and missing a step, that jump in your stomach and the brief flare of panic before you found the ground again.

So it was a second—short, quick, nearly instantaneous—before he settled and took in his surroundings.

A healthy heart does not stop beating from shock. Xavier did not actually stop breathing, stop respiring. And yet it felt as if everything—as if his whole body—shut down in that one, ever-lasting instant.

“Where are we?” he asked, more calmly than he felt. “Grozny? Chechnya? I was kind of hoping to get _home_ -home, not just be dropped off anywhere on the planet. Or at least, you know, somewhere in Britain, I could hitchhike if I had to—”

“I wasn’t lying,” Vladishka said quietly. “The backlash from breaking the null, it—”

Her voice trailed away.

Xavier had seen footage of the devastation left by the tsunami in 2004, and of Hurricane Katrina a year later. British soldiers had worked as relief workers after both disasters, although he’d yet to even enter training then.

This didn’t look like that. This looked like a film set of the world post nuclear war, grey and broken. The pavement had been reduced to thick chunks of dusty concrete, cracked and hammered at; the tarmac road twisted and bucked like a snake frozen in its death throes. Glass fragments covered the ground as thickly as fallen snow, windows stood empty, pipes stuck up from the ground like broken bones jutting through skin. Cars, abandoned, looked like litter, like crushed coke cans left to rust; shop fronts had fallen, leaving buildings looking like dolls’ houses with peel-away walls—but instead of coming away neatly the walls dissolved into heaps of shattered brick, pulverised stone and glass and plastic.

Vladishka watched him look.

And the corpses. There were bodies everywhere.

A glance was enough: no one in war-torn Grozny dressed in designer jeans, carried leather purses polished to a gleam, wore such scarves and shoes and jackets. This was the rich and gluttonous First World. Could easily be England.

And he just stared and stared, because—because it was impossible. Because this didn’t happen. Xavier had seen death, murder, bombs, gun fights, ambushes, rebels with God’s name on their tongues—but even that, all of that, did not come close to _this_.

He sat down. Dust, broken glass, he didn’t care, let it dirty him. Let it cut him.

He could not process what he was seeing. It looked too much like a film, sounded too much like a script, a story—and a badly written one, at that. One too unrealistic for an audience to buy into.

But it wasn’t. Film sets didn’t smell of ash and dust and broken sewer pipes, of corpses days old. Even the cold of a London winter couldn’t hide the smell completely, not without snow. Not with so many bodies.

His mind was frozen still. His mind was racing. His mind was spinning in circles, looking for a loop-hole, searching for the trick, the lie, the _other way_ , there has to be another way, another reason, a way out, not real, can’t be, impossible, too real, those aren’t mannequins and they aren’t actors and he knows, he _knows_ what death looks like—

Vladishka doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t apologise. She watches him climb to his feet. He climbs to his feet because he’s seen something, his mind latches onto it, onto anything that will create, serve as, a distraction. He gets up and cuts his hand on some glass pushing himself off the ground; he doesn’t care.

The sting of it is a distraction.

He crosses the street. Such a simple phrase, such a simple, familiar image it brings to mind. He has crossed thousands of streets. Hundreds of thousands, maybe, if each time he has crossed a street counts as one, as opposed to each individual street that he has crossed. Which is it? How do you figure it?

He crosses the street. He walks around buckled waves of tarmac, skeletal pipes laid bare to the indifferent sky. He walks around corpses. Bodies. They must have been crossing the street, too. When it—when Vladishka—

He crosses the street. He reaches the other side. _Why did the chicken cross the road?_ There are more bodies. A woman. Children. Two men. Their faces and clothes are shredded by wood, splinters of it embedded in their skin. A jagged dagger of it juts out of one man’s arm. Bits of greenery whirl in the faint breeze; leaves are scattered like green confetti, twigs like fallen matches. It’s as if a gardening emporium exploded.

Lodged under one of the children’s hips is a scrap of paper he recognises.

He kneels down to look at it, to pick it up. It’s water-stained, the lurid colours smeared and run together in neon streaks, but the dark print on it is still just about legible.

**_den Goos_ **

_The Golden Goose_. Not a note. A book cover.

Staring at the torn, ragged paper, he doesn’t notice as it starts to snow.


	26. Glossary of Terms

An—the realm at the centre of existence, where the goddess Zysainae is imprisoned.

 

AnKi—a divine ruler, descended from an individual chosen and blessed by Zysainae uncounted millennia ago. (Pronounced Ann-key)

 

AnKi-al-it—the heir second-in-line for the position of AnKi; typically the second child of the reigning AnKi. (Pronounced Ann-key-al-it)

 

AnKien—plural of AnKi. (Pronounced Ann-keen)

 

AnKi-ja-morë—the AnKi-in-waiting; typically the eldest child of the reigning AnKi. (Pronounced Ann-key-jah-more-ay)

 

AnKi-morëz—plural of AnKi-ja-morë. (Pronounced Ann-key-more-ayz).

 

AnKi-or—a sacred bloodline of divine rulers, blessed by the goddess Zysainae. (Pronounced Ann-key-ore)

 

Annunaki—the mortal children of Zysainae. This is a catch-all term used to refer to all species except humans. (Pronounced Ann-une-ack-key)

 

Carosedreapt—an obiric word roughly translated as ‘body-right’ or ‘body-privilege’. It concerns the strict cultural taboo in obiric society of touching another person without their full consent, although it applies equally to seeing someone naked without their permission. Obiri guard their carosedreapt extremely jealously.

 

Dakro—a draconian word meaning ‘full’ or ‘complete’, specifically referring to the form a draconian can take wherein their entire bodies are covered in scales impervious to most weaponry. In appearance they become humanoid dragons, with all body-hair retracted.

 

Dracŭlan—a piece of jewellery, typically a cuff or bracelet, decorated with the royal crest of the Dracula-Imperial family. It symbolises that the wearer has done a great service to that family, or that the family owes them a great debt, and will be treated as kin forevermore. (Pronounced drak-you-lan)

 

Duranki—a catch-all term for all things alive and material. Also used to refer to the web of mana that joins the worlds. (Pronounced Dure-ann-key)

 

Erra—the seven immortal children of Zysainae; Illianor, G’reata, Ronoc, Deliaka, Shikae, Edonmor, and Vesh’dar. Like Her, they were gods. They were killed by Kuvalai long ago, although many believe that some part of them still exist and can answer the prayers of the faithful. (Pronounced Erra)

 

Heyona—the psychic connection that binds all members of a non-human species. Through the heyona individuals can seln the presences and emotions of those in their physical vicinity.

 

Heyonae—plural of heyona. (Pronounced hay-on-ay)

 

Ilnaiel—one of the non-human senses. With ilnaiel the Annunaki can sense the presence or working of spells.

 

Kasadu—the threads of reality; the strands tying each dimension to every other. Also used to describe travelling bodily through those threads, which takes an enormous amount of power and concentration lest the traveller be swept away and dissolved into the pure mana that makes up the threads. Every soul experiences kasadu differently. (Pronounced Kass-ah-do)

 

Kor—a headdress worn by women amongst the arkadian nobility, comprising of a triangular piece of stiffened silk, which curves back above the head of the wearer. Usually decorated or covered with gold coins or charms, and sometimes hung with windchimes or crystals from the tip of the triangle.

 

Kucandrin—a political figure serving under and assisting the reigning AnKi. Equivalent to a regent in human terms. (Pronounced Koo-can-drin)

 

Kucandrel—plural of kucandrin. (Pronounced Koo-can-drel)

 

Kuvalai—the embodiment of evil, born from all the negative emotions found in mortal hearts. The Enemy. (Pronounced Koo-vah-lee)

 

Kye-ah—a citizen of a given kingdom; an individual bound into a kingdom’s heyona. (Pronounced Ky-ah)

 

Lec—an arkadian unit of measurement. Approximately fourteen inches. (Pronounced leck).

 

Lece—plural of lec. (Pronounced lesh).

 

Mahoroive—one of the five souls forged by the goddess Zysainae as keys to open Her prison. (Pronounced mah-or-oy-vee)

 

Mahorela Aoiveae—the five souls forged by the goddess Zysainae as keys to open Her Prison. Translates as The Stars That Light The Dark Heavens. (Pronounced mah-or-ell-a oy-vee-ay)

 

Mâérerâgat—the obiric word for AnKi. (Pronounced ma-eh-rer-raj-at)

 

Mâéreregedes—plural of mâérerâgat. (Pronounced ma-eh-rer-raj-eede-s)

 

Mâéregel—the obiric word for AnKi-ja-morë. (Pronounced ma-eh-raj-el)

 

Mâéregan—the obiric word for AnKi-al-it. (Pronounced mah-eh-raj-an)

 

Mordrashün—the ability, unique to AnKien and AnKi-morëz, to sense the entirety of the heyona of their species at once; in effect, it allows them to seln all of their people constantly, in a very general way. Mordrashün also allows those who have it to manipulate the heyona, especially in those physically close to them. (Pronounced more-drash-un)

 

Nejika—an individual who is the other half or part of your soul, not in romantic terms but literally; or, when one soul is split, usually in two, each piece refers to the other as nejika. Once nejikan have had physical contact, a soulbond is forged between them, allowing the nejikan to communicate telepathically and empathically and tying their life-forces together; should one nejika die, the other will perish instantly. (Pronounced nej-ee-ka)

 

Nejikan—plural of nejika. (Pronounced nej-ee-can)

 

Oset—catch-all term for non-binary gender individuals.

 

Oseteir—plural of oset. (Pronounced oset-eer)

 

Osethor—non-binary gender sibling. (Pronounced oseth-ore)

 

Primulgar—obiric word which translates as ‘first guardian’. A political appointment typically given to a member of the AnKi’s immediate family. The primulgar’s role is to safeguard the children of Sheol in all matters. (Pronounced prime-ull-gar)

 

Sacrym—the sacred object of an Erra, symbol of and channel for their power. (Pronounced Sak-rim)

 

Selnin—the sense which ties the Annunaki to the heyona of their species. Through selnin and the heyona, Annunaki can register the presence and emotions of those around them, so long as the other individual is of the same species. As with the more mundane senses, individuals can only seln those close to them, although stronger emotions (such as fear, pain, and extreme anger or sadness) can be selned from a larger distance. (Pronounced sell-nin, sell-nn, and sell-nn-d)

 

Se—a draconian unit of measurement, roughly equivalent to one foot in length. (Pronounced sea).

 

Sen—plural of se. (Pronounced sehn).

 

Siduro—the individual who commands the combined military forces of an entire world, rather than of a single territory or country. (Pronounced sid-ur-oh)

 

Skalan—an article of arkadian clothing; pantaloons of light, usually brightly-coloured fabric. When worn by women, a skalan has a train between three and six feet long. (Pronounced skah-lan)

 

Syzýgo—an obiric term; a position in the mâérerâgat’s court, a syzýgo is a cross between a consort and a concubine, and is highly respected. Syzýgous are chosen for their beauty and intelligence and often assist the mâérerâgat in fulfilling political duties. Although they are not handfasted/married to the AnKi, they may hold a great deal of power in the court, unless they fall out of favour with their mâérerâgat. It is considered unusual for a mâérerâgat to have fewer than two syzýgous at any one time. (Pronounced sih-zigh-jo)

 

Syzýgous—plural of syzýgo. (Pronounced sih-zigh-jous)

 

Regimaré—the obiric word for someone who is a king or queen by marriage to the mâérerâgat. (Pronounced rej-ee-mar-ee)

 

Roisen—the mana-imbued tattoos worn by the kern-rois people. The tattoos take the shape of roses, one around each eye, and are placed on newborn children within three days of their birth. The mana in the roisen reacts to that of the tattooed person; over time, the roisen darkens, revealing the strength of the wearer’s mana. Caste is arranged according to the ranks of these colours, named after jewels; white jade, citrine, lapis lazuli, sapphire, emerald, amethyst, ruby, amber, rudra, kaustubh, and chinta (these last are gemstones not found on Earth). Many kern-rois wear facial studs and other piercings around their roisen, to call attention to their caste. (Pronounced roy-sen)

 

Vovim—one of the five children of Kuvalai. (Pronounced Vo-vim)

 

Vovix—plural form of Vovim. (Pronounced Vo-vix)

 

Xai—an extra-sensory power unique to obiri. It is in effect a form of hypnotism. (Pronounced zigh, rhyming with sigh)

 

Zysainae—the Goddess. She has numberless aspects, the most popular of which are Zysainae-Irkalla—the Weaver of fate and the material reality; Zysainae-Enyo—the Avenger, justice-bringer and keeper of oaths; Zysainae-Anosia—she who watches over lovers; and Zysainae-Nammu—mother of all. As Zysainae-Irkalla, She wove the worlds into being and began time. (Pronounced, respectively; Zigh-san-ay; Zigh-san-ay Ur-calla; Zigh-san-ay Enyo; Zigh-san-ay Ann-oh-sea-ah; and Zigh-san-ay Nam-oo)


End file.
